


Long Journey Home

by Neverever



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Ultimates, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action & Romance, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, M/M, Multiverse, Mutual Pining, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 33,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Avengers Assemble Steve thinks that his Tony has found a way home through a portal. But it goes terribly wrong. Both Steve and Tony end up on a journey through the multiverse, reliving other Tony and Steve's lives and meeting their multiverse counterparts. Something is keeping them from finding each other and Steve and Tony have to find a way to get back to each other or be lost forever.





	1. Steve

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Art for "Long Journey Home"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832587) by [ExitTheKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExitTheKing/pseuds/ExitTheKing). 



> Well, here's a multiverse fic written for the 2017 Captain America-Iron Man Big Bang. 
> 
> I was thrilled to work with artists exittheking and Kakushimiko on this and check out their great art. Exittheking's art is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12832587). Kakushimiko's art can be found here: [first piece](https://kakushimiko.deviantart.com/art/Long-Journey-Home-717276686); [second piece](https://kakushimiko.deviantart.com/art/Long-Journey-Home-2-717276817); [ third piece](https://kakushimiko.deviantart.com/art/Long-Journey-Home-3-717276975); [fourth piece](https://kakushimiko.deviantart.com/art/Long-Journey-Home-4-717277079); [fifth piece](https://kakushimiko.deviantart.com/art/Long-Journey-Home-5-717277169); and [a masterpost with all the art](http://kakushimiko.tumblr.com/post/167950802907/and-here-is-my-second-collaboration-for-the#disqus_thread). Thank you all so much for the wonderful art!
> 
> And thanks to Navaan for a first read-through and to Armsplutonic for brainstorming, first read through, and beta work.

“It’s going to be about a half-hour before we hear from Tony, Cap,” Sam warned when Steve arrived early for the weekly phone call home from Tony.

“Right,” Steve replied. 

He sat awkwardly near Sam, trying to not ask questions while tamping down the fear that accompanied all these calls. Sam, Bruce and T’Challa had gotten the calls on a regular, dependable schedule. Bruce had even joked that the whole contact Tony thing was getting to be like waiting for the sun to rise or set.

Steve definitely disagreed on that point. He never took the calls for granted. Something was bound to go wrong someday. Maybe the team would get called out for a critical mission just as Tony called. Or this would be the time that Tony’s dimension was out of sync with theirs. Or worse, something had happened to Tony and Steve wasn’t there to take care of him. 

He wasn’t going to be able to sleep well until Tony was back home.

“Uh, Steve, stop, um, doing whatever you’re doing,” Sam asked when Steve snapped a screwdriver in two. 

“Sorry,” Steve said. He backed away from the worktable. Sam was too polite to tell him to stop hovering while Sam fiddled with the finicky connections on Tony’s radio lifeline.

“The call won’t be for a while, Cap.” Sam tapped away on the computer keyboard. 

“I know.”

Steve had spent the morning training. After the call, he had a long workout planned, then a review of his training tapes and latest briefings from SHIELD, and then maybe some more training. One never could train enough.

Bruce arrived with his coffee and took up a spot next to Sam. “Miss anything?” he asked, picking up Sam’s logbook.

Sam shook his head tightly. “Nothing.” He pointed to one of the computer screens. “Check out that data.”

Steve moved a little further away as Bruce and Sam fell into a lot of tech-speak he couldn’t quite follow. The rest of the original team would be arriving soon. Steve looked around the large hangar where Bruce, T’Challa and Sam had set up the Avengers’ labs and work spaces. Large, and full of echoes and tech, and not really home.

Clint announced his arrival by noisily dropping a bundle of arrows on his worktable. Until recently, Steve had had no idea how often Clint worked on his arrows. He should talk to Clint about some training ideas he had. Natasha trailed behind with her coffee. 

“You know what? The Tower was a lot better than this overgrown quonset hut out in the middle of nowhere New York,” Clint grumbled at her. He was decidedly not a fan of the new Avengers facility located conveniently enough in upper state New York. The Tower was still in ruins, and with no Tony at Stark Industries, no one was willing to start rebuilding.

The Avengers facility wasn’t home. The rest of the team tried to make it one — the video game room and the gym set up just like they had it in the Tower, single bedrooms for everyone except for Kamala, who only came up for training exercises and missions, the training room, and the large kitchen. But Steve knew in his bones that this place wasn’t home.

At first, Steve woke up in the morning still expecting to see Tony in the kitchen fixing his coffee and toast. Then, late at night, he still looked for Tony quietly working away in his workshop. And each and every time he’d be crushed all over again to find that Tony was not there. He had the same disappointment at lunch and dinner and in the quinjet before missions and in the briefing room afterwards. 

They had even set up a datacrux like they had in the Tower. But no Tony, no collection of coffee mugs, no papers covered over with complex equations or Iron Man drawings. Steve avoided it as much as he could. Nothing was the same.

The team never talked about Tony with Steve.

Steve hated that. He could overhear the whispered conversations in the kitchen or in the locker room. He wasn’t imagining the looks of pity and sadness shot in his direction.

Natasha was always kind. She joined him for breakfast and backed him up when he vetoed Cards Against Humanity for game night. Sam and Clint tried their best as well. Clint glared at Thor and made a slashing motion across his throat when Thor attempted to toast to Tony, their recently lost comrade. But when Steve tried to talk about Tony, his teammates shut him down by telling him not to worry or fleeing to do other things.

“We’ll get him back as soon as possible, Cap” was the team mantra. 

Steve just wanted to remember Tony — hold on tightly to all the memories before they faded to shadows, or, worse, disappeared. He could barely remember what his father looked like or recall the warmth of his mother’s smile as she read him stories. But Tony was too important to trust to his nearly superhuman memory. Some night he was going to wake up crying because he couldn’t remember the feel of Tony in his arms during their first kiss. 

Steve had lived with grief and loss all his life. He would get through this, lured on by the bright promise that they could and would find Tony again. He swallowed it down and put on a smile. If only his teammates would talk to him about Tony, they would see that he was handling the loss well. He was a survivor. 

It didn’t help much when he stopped by the hangar a few weeks ago to see if Sam had any news about Tony, and found Clint, Thor and Hulk playing a racing game with rolling chairs and handcarts and fire extinguishers. Clint shouted, “Give me five minutes and you’ll owe me pizza for a year.” The game came to a shuddering halt when they saw Steve. He ended up waving goodnight when it was clear that they weren’t going to play as long as Steve was there. As he left, he could hear them start the game up again.

Better for everyone if Steve stuck to his bedroom when he wasn’t training or running a mission. So that was what it had been like for the past couple of weeks. He only had energy for training, missions, eating, sleeping, catching the occasional baseball game. No art, no reading, no hanging out. He wore his uniform at all times, only changing for working out or for sleep. “Wartime hard mode,” as Tony might call it.

Steve paced back and forth, swinging his helmet in his hand. What if today was the day that Tony couldn’t reach them? What if the last time he ever heard from Tony was their conversation three days ago? When he tried to say ‘I love you’ and the words stuck in his throat? 

“Any news?” Natasha asked Sam when Thor finally arrived.

Sam shook his head. “Nothing.” He toggled a button back and forth on the computer. “Just the usual message about the next transmission.”

Natasha pulled up a chair. Clint rolled over, an unfinished arrow in his hand. Thor and Bruce opted to stand next to the table. Steve hovered on the edge. The other team members were hanging out in the other parts of the facility, keeping an eye on things in case of attack. “Talking To Tony” was something for the original team. Once they connected, Tony had about fifteen minutes before his dimension shifted and they lost contact.

Sound hissed and cracked over the speakers as Sam opened the channel. It felt like a ceremony every time they did this. They gathered around Sam’s computer, waited out the static, and then Tony would say —

“Hi guys, hope you’ve been beating AIM into the ground this week!” Tony’s voice said over the air. They all shouted hello in response.

Not realizing how tense he’d gotten waiting, Steve relaxed at hearing Tony. Another reprieve from being separated forever. 

“Good news! I think I’ve solved the whole ‘stuck in another dimension’ thing. I’ve managed to build a portal based on those tests we ran a few weeks ago.”

“Tony, what about Ultron?” Natasha asked.

“Um, yeah, that still might be a problem. But I’m working on it. My system has purged about 50% of the Ultron virus and the number gets better every day. Thanks to Bruce for the assist!”

“I’ll tell him,” Sam said, exchanging a quick look with Bruce. “Can you send me the schematics for that portal? I’m assuming that you need us to build something on our end.”

“Yeah, sure, sending the plans now. How are the online courses going, Sam?”

Tony was going to talk to each of the team members in turn. All part of the ceremony of “Talking To Tony.” They were his friends, too. Steve couldn’t be jealous of the tiny bit of time that they had with him. Sam would tell him how college was going, Natasha gave updates about the facility and Clint about everyone in the facility. Hulk and Thor talked about the people they defeated and Bruce about the latest discoveries. Steve had his three minutes at the end of the call. No one stayed around for that.

“Hey —” Sam said, interrupting Clint. “We got the schematics. Do you think this will really work?”

“I hope so!” Tony replied with a laugh. “I’m tired of being stuck here. I’m getting to the point where I even miss Justin Hammer.”

As Sam asked Tony a question about the portal, Steve noticed a bright light off to the side, hovering in the air. Not a reflection, as the sparks within the light shifted and coalesced into a large, round ball.. 

“Tony! Did you build that portal?” Steve shouted. He grabbed the shield and jumped in front of the swirling light.

“Steve! I set up a working model — haven’t tried anything yet —”

“That can’t be good,” Clint observed over his right shoulder.

“Everyone get back!” Steve yelled as he lifted the shield for protection. He ducked and rolled to avoid the blinding flash of light from the portal. Behind him, his teammates dove to the ground, scattering chairs and overturning tables. Natasha shouted something over the comms to the other team members. 

A tentacle of brilliant white light shot out from the portal, grabbed Steve around the waist, and tossed him into the portal and the darkness beyond.


	2. Steve

Steve was shaken awake. He turned over on his back, wondering what day it was, and had a vague feeling he had to be some place sometime soon. He could feel lamplight shining on his face and a dip in the bed. 

“Wake up, sleepyhead, time to get up,” Peggy said in his ear. He yawned and stretched awake and blinked at Peggy leaning over him. She kissed his forehead. 

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Sometime between early and too late,” she admitted. 

He reached out for the alarm clock on the nightstand next to his side of the bed. His hand felt nothing. “What —”

“I can’t find it either,” Peggy said with a smile. “We probably knocked it under the bed. Again.” She poked him. “You have that interview at 10.”

“And you have to be at SHIELD.”

Peggy nodded. She was already dressed for work, her brown hair pinned up and her wedding ring shining in the light from the bedside lamp. “Yeah, and it’s likely to be a late night with Zodiac on the loose.”

“You’ll round ‘em up soon enough.”

He found clothes in the bureau and swerved to avoid banging his leg on the bed in the small bedroom. The living room wasn’t much bigger, with a couch, a couple of tables, an expensive radio on its own stand, and an artist’s drafting table shoved in the corner. A framed wedding photo of Steve and Peggy in their uniforms perched on top of the overflowing bookcase.

He felt like he belonged here, that everything within the walls of the tiny apartment was right and perfect and all that he had dreamed of.

The alluring smell and sound of percolating coffee hit Steve as soon as he walked into the kitchen. “Do you want eggs this morning?” he asked, heading for the stove.

“I’d prefer a couple of slices of toast,” Peggy replied. She sat down at the kitchen table and pulled out a couple of reports. “Maybe some bacon, too.”

“Coming right up.”

She pushed a report over to Steve when he set breakfast down on the table. “What do you think?”

“Is Phillips serious about bring in ex-HYDRA agents like Zola?” Steve didn’t like the idea at all. Zola was as true a believer in HYDRA as Red Skull was. Losing the war and getting a US government paycheck wasn’t going to change his mind. 

Peggy shook her head. “He’s getting some pressure from the administration. It’d be helpful if you said something as Captain America.”

“As the retired Captain America,” he corrected. “Hung up the shield and got married, that’s what the papers say.”

“Howard and Phillips have been asking if there’s some way I can get you to come back.”

“I joined up to fight Nazis and HYDRA. That’s over. What would Captain America do when I’m not fighting a war?”

“There are always places for people like you, Steve. Not as Captain America, something else.”

Steve shook his head. SHIELD was Peggy and Howard’s world, and he didn’t like where the organization was going. He’d be fighting wars for Phillips, but not the wars he wanted to. “Now, I’m just Steve Rogers, artist-illustrator with a Saturday Evening Post cover.”

Peggy stood and finished off her coffee. “Even if they decide to get another Captain America?”

Steve nearly asked who Senator Brant had in mind as the latest dancing monkey. His eyes hit on the headlines about the threatening situation in Korea. “No. I fought one war. That’s enough.”

Peggy shrugged into her raincoat. “Besides the interview today with Marvels, what are your plans?” Peggy asked. 

“Work on those drawings for the Daily Bugle.”

“It’d be nice if you could get on with Marvels. That way at least you’d be contributing to the household income besides being the kept man.” She kissed the top of his head and headed out.

Steve had been a big fan of Marvels before the war, and, to be honest, he had been thrilled that the editors wanted to see his work. He carefully put together a portfolio of his latest work, including a few panels of a war comic he had recently finished. He threw in a couple of sketches of dinosaurs on a whim. He put on a clean, pressed suit, polished his shoes and forayed into the cool spring rain to try his fortune.

When he arrived at the editorial offices of Marvels, Steve noted the boxes lined up along the wall and furniture covered in tarps. “We just moved,” the secretary apologized. “Miss Potts is waiting for you.” 

The formidable Miss Potts reviewed his portfolio, asking the usual questions about his training, his previous work and where he served in the war. “I love your work, Mr. Rogers,” she said as she shuffled his art into a neat pile. “I’d be thrilled to have you at my magazine — I have a few upcoming stories that need good, compelling illustrations. But I’m afraid I can’t offer much, if that will be a problem.”

Steve preferred to have steady work at this point more than selling the occasional piece. He’d be able to command higher prices later. “Depends on the price,” he replied.

“Hmmm,” she replied, thoughtfully tapping on her desk. “I’ll send you a proposal — it may be a couple of days, considering our circumstances.” She waved over to a couple of boxes and a typewriter.

“I understand,” Steve replied. “I read your magazine all the time before the war.”

“I’m glad to know that you were a fan.” 

Steve looked over at the painting on a side wall — a portrait of a black-haired, blue-eyed man wearing a tuxedo, with a gleam in his eye and smile tugging at his lips. A man familiar to any Marvels reader. 

Miss Potts nodded. “Our founder and guiding light, Anthony Stark.”

He had met Mr. Stark before, somewhere — Steve couldn’t quite put his finger on where or when. But he could hear Mr. Stark’s voice and laugh and see his smile. A hazy memory of Stark talking about transistors as he put a coffee mug down next to three other mugs half-filled with cold coffee. A hand brushing against his ….

“Where is he? Off on adventures?”

Her face fell. “I’m afraid we lost him at the end of the war. He went on an adventure in the Amazon, and we never heard from him. The magazine, of course, has a large reward for information about him, and there are at least two expeditions out there. We’ll publish the stories if they’re good.”

“He never thought of retirement?”

Miss Potts laughed hard. “No, the heart condition didn’t stop him, nor did the war. I like to think that he’s caught up in something big and grand, and soon he’ll pop up with a wild story.” She looked wistfully at the painting. “I’ve been the editor-in-chief of the magazine since 1941, and I’ve been building up the readership — our audience is keen to read adventures in far off places. Last issue we had a story about the lost city of K’un-Lun that was a hit.”

On his way back home, Steve imagined himself out there exploring the forests of the Amazon with Stark as he looked out the cab window at the rain. Just like he had done when he was a scrawny sick kid confined to bed. Dreaming of all the places he would go and all the things he would do when he was older. Steve could do all that now -- all he had to do was call Phillips and he’d be back in the game. 

But he’d fought for peace and to get back to a normal life. Which he had now. Married, starter apartment and secondhand furniture and all, getting paid for his art. He’d eventually get the time to do his own art in his own studio. A bright and promising and steady future all laid out in front of him.

Steve stepped out of the cab in front of his apartment. “Help!” a woman shouted as a man fled with her purse.

He never hesitated a second. One uppercut later and Steve laid the guy out. “Thank you,” the woman said gratefully as they waited for the police to take their reports and cart the man away. 

After lunch, he sat down at his drafting table, unable to draw or do anything with himself. He couldn’t shake the feel of adrenaline that shot through his body as he stopped the thief. Using his strength to help people directly. Making the world safe for others. The very reason he’d wanted to go to war in the first place. 

He leaned back in his chair in the dark apartment, sipping the dregs of his coffee. A door had been opened. And he had waltzed right through into another country and found he couldn’t go back.

Lifting his coffee, he saluted Tony Stark of Marvels out there somewhere pursuing another adventure. At least Stark had been honest with himself about what he wanted out of life.


	3. Tony

“That’s it, screw it on tight,” Tony coached Miles as the boy wrestled with the wrench. “If it’s not tight enough, the oil will spill out and Ms. Maximoff will be a very unhappy customer. You’re not ready yet for engine rebuilds.”

Miles nervously took a deep breath and tightened the nut. Tony squeezed his shoulder. “There you go, you just finished your first oil change.”

The kid stood up and smiled broadly at Tony. “Hey, that wasn’t so bad.”

Tony pointed at the mess around the car. “Tell me how you feel after you’ve cleaned up. But, yeah, not a bad job at all.” He tugged up his jeans threatening to slide down his hips and assessed the remaining work orders in the garage. He still had a muffler job to do on Rhodey’s old junker that Rhodey planned to restore some day. But the other cars were waiting for parts on order or had been dropped off earlier to be worked on tomorrow. Time to call it a day.

He opened a door in the back and surveyed the group of kids who had taken over his garage office. “Alexander, take your feet off the desk,” Tony said as he wiped the grease from his hands.

At least Sam had the courtesy to look guilty when he sat up straight. He brushed the hair out of his eyes. “Just doing homework, Mr. Stark,” he explained.

“Homework good, destroying the furniture not good,” Tony replied. Kamala smiled at him until he smiled in return. They were good kids, but Tony had no idea why they decided to hang out after school at his garage. Plenty of other places in town, like that creepy bowling alley for one thing. Although maybe describing a place as “creepy” was a clue to why the kids weren’t there.

“Robbie, did Maria Hill pick up her car yet?”

“She called — she doesn’t know when she can leave work,” said the tall, skinny kid in a black t-shirt at the front desk.

“Put it in the lot in the back — wait, remember, no speeding, right?”

“Right.” Robbie grabbed a set of keys. Robbie was on thin ice with the local police, having racked up three speeding tickets within a month of getting his license. He lived and breathed for cars and was going to break records for getting his license suspended.

Tony turned back to the Junior League meeting in the office. Kamala and Sam had their heads bent over math homework. Scott, wearing sunglasses, was slumped in the couch furiously texting and frowning. Amadeus was sitting on the other end flipping through his calculus textbook. Viv complained, “Does anyone know what we’re supposed to do for the history paper?”

“Yeah,” Amadeus said. He didn’t even look up from his book. “Three pages on a historical figure from WWII. Due Friday.”

“Wait — didn’t Mr. Hammond have a list of people to pick from?” Kamala asked.

Amadeus shrugged. “I already finished it. Write about Captain America — you can’t go wrong. Hammond’s a big fan.”

Tony smiled. Oh yeah, Captain America, the staple of high-school history classes all over America. He’d grown up hearing all about good ol’ Cap. His father had one of the largest collection of Cap memorabilia in the world, although Tony was never allowed to touch or borrow anything, even a beaten-up comic, for show and tell. Howard and the collection felt like a lifetime and a million miles away.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket. Rumiko was on her way to the garage for their ‘date.’ He sighed. Shouldn’t be so complicated between them. But she traveled and he had the garage; she wanted the big city and he was fleeing it. Tons of fun together, but never wanting to give anything up to make it permanent. She was in town for a week, so Tony had to make the best of it.

“Hey, Robbie?” The kid poked his head up from behind the counter. “I gotta get going. Lock up for me, okay?”

“You got it, Mr. Stark!” Robbie said, shooting him a thumb’s up.

Tony commandeered the bathroom for a quick change out of the jeans and greasy, stained t-shirt into something more respectable. He looked into the mirror as he finger-combed his hair into place. He blinked a couple of times, suddenly confused by the blue eyes in the mirror. Like he expected to see different-colored eyes looking back at him. Working too hard was going to get him in the end. 

Rumiko honked the horn to summon Tony from the garage. He loved her red Audi convertible, completely unpractical for Connecticut winters, but perfect for a ride in the early fall afternoon. He jumped into the newly vacated driver’s seat.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Want to go for a ride?”

“Sure. Where were you thinking?”

“How about down by the river? They’re restoring an old neighborhood and I’d like to see the houses.”

Tony had lived in Pleasant Hill for a couple of years. He’d left New York City for a reason, only keeping a car and hazy memories of booze and adrenaline-filled nights. Wait, that didn’t seem right. He couldn’t quite tease out the strands of fleeting feelings and thoughts and a flash of red and gold and the rush of wind.

“Why don’t you come with me when I fly out to Los Angeles?” Rumiko asked. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind an ear and smiled at Tony. “It bothers me that you’re willing to let moss grow over you.”

“I’m fine — the garage and the car restoration business keep me out of trouble.” Tony drove along the winding road that cut through suburban developments.

Rumiko said, “Okay, turn on that road there.” She pointed towards a tree-covered road. 

“Never been down here,” Tony admitted. 

“I know — I drive past all the time to go jogging on the trail by the river, but I don’t remember this road,” Rumiko agreed. “Maybe it’s that historic development I wanted to see.”

She was right. As soon as Tony turned the corner, they could see a street of lovely mid-century houses in various stages of restoration. 

“I wonder if any are for sale,” she mused.

Tony drove slowly down the street. A couple of houses were already occupied, lights shining in their windows and welcome mats set out. The whole thing felt a bit surreal, like someone had put out little model homes in a little model town and he was a little model mechanic in the whole diorama. 

“Oh, I love that house,” Rumiko said, pulling on Tony’s arm to point out a beautiful house with a sloping roof and plate glass windows, looking ready for its closeup for Architectural Digest or Dwell. “I want it.”

“Let’s go check it out,” Tony replied. He pulled the car into the driveway and parked.

They walked around the house, bending to peer into the darkened windows. Rumiko said, “I bet they’ve already restored inside — wonder if they kept any of the old fixtures.”

“Maybe the workers left the door unlocked,” Tony suggested. 

They were lucky -- the front door was unlocked. Tony pushed it open, only to be blinded by a bright beam of light. Like he was being sucked into a portal straight out of old comic books and bad sci-fi movies.


	4. Steve

Slivers of dawn light slanting through the ruined roof and hit Steve right in the face as he lay on his rickety cot. It wasn’t the light that woke him, but the trucks starting up outside and the men milling about. He could smell mud and gunpowder, and it didn’t matter exactly where he was, because he was still waking up to the ongoing war.

Bucky kicked the door open. “Hey, I grabbed us breakfast before it disappeared.” He set plates and tins on a nearby crate. “Still hot,” he said pointedly as he dropped down on a stool. He was out of his uniform and wearing standard-issue khakis.

Steve sat up. He had just had the strangest dream about living back home after the war. Almost like he had really been there. Pull yourself together, Rogers, not much longer. They were close to slamming the door shut on Hitler according to recent intel, and Captain America planned to be there.

Bucky shoved lukewarm toast at him. “The boys are going to leave in an hour,” he said.

“We can catch up,” Steve replied. 

“I’m too old to ride in a sidecar,” Bucky huffed. He brushed his bangs out of his eyes and bit into his dry toast. He patted around the crate for something. “Here — guess this tells us our next orders.” He handed a worn folder over to Steve.

“Hey, Buck! Where’s Cap?” Toro shouted from the door. In his uniform and slicked back hair, he didn’t look much different than the other infantrymen packing up camp around them. Steve glanced over at Bucky and wondered how both of them were suddenly so much older than he recalled. “Oh, there you are.” He shouted over his shoulder, “Jim — they’re still in here!”

Toro bounced over to grab a stool to sit next to Bucky. “Torch said you were already on the road,” he said to Bucky as he went for the bacon on his plate.

“Get your own food,” Bucky snapped, snatching his plate out of danger barely in time.

“Too late for mess hall and we’re low on c-rations.” Toro made a face. “Not everyone can fly on an empty stomach like Torch or Cap.” 

“Or Namor,” Steve pointed out. 

Toro nudged Bucky with his shoulder until Bucky reluctantly gave up some bread and a hardboiled egg. Steve eyed the worn folder tucked under his thigh. He hoped the mission wasn’t that time-sensitive.

“We’re going to Berlin,” Toro announced. He fidgeted excitedly on his stool. “Gonna put Hitler in jail where he belongs.”

Hmm, maybe that’s where their orders were sending them. But a look at Bucky’s unhappy face told Steve that they weren’t going with Jim and Toro. 

“Then we’re all going home,” he added. “Got more food, Bucky?”

Jim arrived with Namor in tow. “We’re headed out shortly,” Jim said. 

“You going too?” Steve asked Namor. 

“No — I have a different mission. A more difficult and demanding one,” Namor clarified. “Perhaps I will be able to rejoin you when I am done.”

“Finished eating, Toro?” Jim asked. 

Steve half-listened to his friends’ banter as he pulled out the folder to review the mission. Top, top secret airplane, airbase in England, Zemo a threat, jeep to the airplane taking them to England leaving in an hour. Steve took stock of the room. His and Bucky’s meager belongings were already stowed in a trunk, the Captain America uniform in a duffel bag and the shield carefully wrapped up in brown canvas. All that was left to do was wait for the pickup.

“And are you joining our friends, good Captain?” Namor asked.

“We’re on our way to England to guard an airbase,” Steve said.

Toro snorted and nudged an obviously disappointed Bucky. “That’s the wrong direction, Buck, you know, if you’re fighting in this war.”

“Oh, come on, Torch and Toro get to go to Berlin and we’re stuck babysitting,” Bucky complained. “It’s not right. We should be on the front lines on this one.”

“Zemo’s involved,” Steve said. “That’s all I need.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Cap. This is bullshit. You know what this is all about.” But finding that Steve was not going to join in his complaints, Bucky backed off and started piling up the breakfast dishes.

Steve had a funny feeling in his bones. Jim and Namor were good-naturedly arguing over the best way to kill Nazis and HYDRA. Toro was giving Bucky a hard time about their mission. He’d miss this when the war was over. But there would be reunions and visits and maybe a place for them all in the post-war army. For one thing, Fury had plans for a new agency to handle threats that no one else could.

But on the other hand, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the last time he’d see any of them. He shook his head. He couldn’t afford any of these thoughts when there was still a war on.

Dum Dum Dugan knocked on the door. “I’m here to pick up anybody on their way to punch Hitler.”

“That’s us!” Toro said, jumping to his feet.

Bucky shot him a dark look. “You didn’t say you were going with the Howling Commandos.”

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t. Hey, Buck, we’re going to Berlin with the Howling Commandos and we’re going to throw a party that the Fuhrer ain’t going to like. Too bad your invite got lost in the mail.”

Steve shook everyone’s hand with promises to see them soon. Bucky pulled out a duffel bag from the corner of the room, still envious of the crowing Toro. They wouldn’t be going to England if they weren’t needed there, Steve was certain of that.

~~~~~

The jeep came to a full stop next to the plane taking them to their next stop. Bucky hopped out of the other side of the jeep to retrieve his bag. Steve moved to get up out of his seat. The driver made an odd sort of wave. Steve reached for the shield as the sound of airfield dampened around him and time seemed to slow down. All his nerves ramped up to high alert.

With a smile, the driver turned to Steve. “Not too late turn back. Someone else can watch the plane.”

Was this guy working for Zemo? Was he using some newfangled HYDRA weapon? “If the brass ordered Captain America on this mission, there’s a good reason for the mission.”

“Your friend back there knows that this is all about the propaganda. No one from Eisenhower on down wants to lose Captain America on the eve of the end of the European war. Watch the plane, stay safe, and you roll into Berlin at the head of the motorcade, not a scratch on you.”

Steve kept his doubts to himself about his commanders’ wisdom, not even sharing them with Bucky. He had his suspicions, but then again, the mission brief had specifically spelled out Zemo’s involvement. 

“Are you working for HYDRA?” he asked, ready to grab and haul the driver to the MPs.

“No,” the driver replied cheerfully. “I’m a friend that only wants to help.”

“You’ve given your advice,” Steve said coldly.

The driver ignored him. “You know what’s going to happen if you go on that mission. You know it in your bones. All your dreams, none of those come true.”

Steve stilled in his seat. He ran down the list of possible enemy attacks. Mind control? Mind reading? He’d seen so many at this point. Maybe he was overthinking this — maybe this guy had been sent to distract him, slow him down, keep him from the mission, all he needed to do was talk. “Every soldier wants to go home.”

“You go on this mission, you won’t go home. Your friends will die or go missing in action. Miss the plane, and you can save them all.”

Right. The death talk. Jim and Namor could handle themselves just fine without him around. Steve nearly rolled his eyes from annoyance at the wasted time. He reached for the door, but he couldn’t open it.

“Private or Captain Rogers, whatever your actual rank is, you know what is going to happen — I am giving you a chance to choose the future you deserve.”

Images flashed through Steve’s mind — half-remembered dreams of postwar life settling down with Peggy, their apartment in New York, a house in Connecticut, reunions with the Invaders, art classes, working with Fury, speeches and parades, vacations, anniversaries, and landing on the moon. Flashy color film of things that hadn’t happened yet. All he needed were the songs and it would be a Hollywood musical of his life.

Except for one elusive memory of a dark-haired man with smiling brown eyes that felt more real than the entire weight of his memories. And the feel of ice in his blood. Steve was an adult. He knew enough that dreams were deceptive, and wishes not what was or will be. For all his talents, he was not psychic, but he sure the hell has a great relationship with reality.

He goes on this mission and he could die. But that was true of everything he faced once he signed up to take the serum. 

He felt the mission briefing like a ten-ton weight in his lap. That was real. He had a mission. Zemo gets the plane, that would complicate the Allies’ final push of the war. He had friends out there that would die if he failed to do his job. What if Zemo escaped and continued the war somewhere else? The world was riding on his shoulders and he had his orders.

“Stuff it,” Steve declared. He wrenched the door open. “Come on, Bucky, we have a plane to catch.”


	5. Tony

Saturday morning and Tony was in the garage again tracking down the knocking noise coming from Happy’s car. He had no idea what Happy did to his cars that always landed them in the shop. At least this time it didn’t need a complete engine replacement. 

He stood up and stretched his arms, hoping to ease the crick in his back. Coffee, he was going to need a lot of coffee for this. He turned around and nearly walked right into a blond guy in a leather jacket on a motorcycle. And not just any motorcycle, it looked like a vintage Harley-Davidson. He’d have to check the internet to determine the exact model. Either way, it was a beautiful machine. No less beautiful than its owner standing there with a coffee in his hand.

Tony pushed up his goggles. “Can I help you?”

“Do you work on motorcycles? Jan told me that you were the best mechanic in town,” Mr. Dazzling White Smile said.

One way to win Tony over was to be worried about the machines in your life, and Blondie passed the test with flying colors. He knelt down next to the bike looking for any obvious flaw. “What’s wrong?”

“Engine won’t turn over.”

Tony looked over his shoulder at the guy. Nice blue eyes, dressed casually in a white shirt over a blue t-shirt and jeans. The leather jacket did wonders for his shoulders and waist. “Did you push it —?”

Hot Guy smiled. “All the way from the diner down the street. Jan said to say she sent me.”

“Any friend of Jan’s is a friend of mine. I’m Tony, by the way.”

“Steve.”

“You new in town?” Pleasant Hill was small enough that everyone knew everyone. Tony would remember someone like Steve. Jan would’ve never shut up about him with that smile and those shoulders.

“Moved here a week ago.” Steve fished a business card out of a jacket pocket. “Steve Rogers, freelance graphic designer.”

“Ever have problems with it before?”

“I’ve owned that bike two years. Not a problem.” Steve shook his head. “I even watched my friend Sam work on the restoration.”

“Uh-huh.” Tony stood up. “Try and start it.”

Steve turned the key and pushed the clutch and nothing. Tony rubbed his chin. “That’s not good,” he said. “Try kickstarting it.” No dice, no engine roar. But man, did Steve look good trying. Tony walked Steve through starting the motorcycle again. “Nothing wrong with your technique.”

“Heh heh,” Steve laughed.

Tony snorted. “Okay.” He walked around the bike. “How about a push start?”

“Thor, Hank and I tried that in the parking lot. Nothing.”

How did all of Tony’s friends know about Steve and not a peep to Tony? Something wasn’t right with that. 

“I’m surprised to find you open. I thought I’d have to leave the bike and come back Monday.”

“I work on friends’ cars on the weekend or my own project or two. I’m always around.”

“Good thing I didn’t wait.”

“This might take longer to run diagnostics and pinpoint what went wrong. I could give you a loaner car if you want.”

Steve ran a hand up and down a handlebar. “Sure.”

“I’ll look at it maybe tomorrow? Or Monday. I’ll call you if I find anything.”

Tony sent Steve off in a Ford Fiesta and pondered for the rest of the day how someone that tall and built could fit into that car. Actually he couldn’t shake Steve out of his mind at all for the rest of the day.

“Jan, why didn’t you tell about the new guy in town?” he said over the phone. He was leaning back in his chair in his home office late Saturday night.

He could hear her repressing a laugh and failing at it. “You mean Steve? Tall guy with blond hair —?” Jan started.

“And muscles that go on for days? That Steve.”

“He moved to town a few days ago. He’s the greatest, Tony. Just a really nice guy —”

Tony nearly told Jan to knock it off. Jan didn’t need to do a hard sell for Steve. Tony would buy what that guy was selling any given day. “Are you trying to set us up? Wait — did you do something to his motorcycle?”

“No, I would never do anything like that. Steve’s riding a piece of garbage. He’ll tell you that it’s a restored antique, but it’s breaking down all the time. You’d be doing us all a favor if you fixed it once and for all or dumped it in the river. And a double favor if you take Steve out for coffee. He’s obsessing over work.”

Tony woke up early on Sunday to work on the motorcycle. The sooner he fixed it the sooner he’d get to see the new wonder in town. Fortunately it looked like a fast and easy fix. He’d narrowed the issue to the battery connection and some loose wiring. Either the restoration work wasn’t the greatest or Steve was rough on his motorcycles. 

He found Steve’s card on his office desk. Heavy cardstock, compelling design — a star set in the center of concentric circles — and attractive lettering. Likely Steve’s creation, considering he told Tony that he was a freelance graphic designer. “Is Steve Rogers there? I’m calling about the motorcycle.”

“You fixed it?” Steve was like a ray of sunshine even over the phone.

“Come on by and try it out.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.”

When Steve showed up on his doorstep, Tony waved him into the garage. “I think I found the source of the problem,” he started.

Steve slipped off his backpack and set it down by the garage door. “Good — I miss the old girl.”

“I reconnected some wires. It should start with no problem. Try it.”

Steve attempted to start the bike. But nothing. Tony pulled his hair in frustration. “You probably think I lured you down here just to hang out with me,” he blurted out.

“That’s not a hardship,” Steve said, clapping Tony on the shoulder. “I’ve got nowhere to be if you want to work on the bike now. I can sit over there.” 

“It’s got to be the battery. Talk to me, Bike, tell me what’s wrong,” Tony said to the motorcycle.

“Do they talk to you?” Steve asked. 

“Not always. Just when I don’t have company. But your bike has a message for you — she wants me to tell you to be gentle with her.”

“I’m not that bad. Trust me.” Steve patted the handlebars as if apologizing.

“Shoo.” He waved at Steve. “Let the genius work his magic.”

Steve gave Tony a broad smile as he unpacked a tablet and stylus from his backpack. He wrangled a rolling chair from the office and set up shop next to Tony’s workbench.

Tony didn’t usually have an audience when he worked. He thought he caught Steve looking at him, and not only because he was curious about what Tony was doing to his bike. “I’m going to make a quick wardrobe change — it’s getting hot in here.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice.” But Steve’s smirk said something else.

Jan would have laughed at Tony if she saw him. Tony had decided to change into a black tank top. Just in case Steve was a bicep guy. Or maybe Steve had an eye for asses. So he shimmied into the jeans that never seemed to stay on his hips when he bent over to work on cars. He raked his black hair into place, hoped his blue eyes weren’t too bloodshot, and headed back to the garage bay as nonchalantly as possible, like he did this whenever he worked on all the bikes and cars in his shop, like he meant it when he said it was getting hot.

The thought was that he was going to do a quick battery replacement and a little bicep flexing and maybe he’d get an opening to ask for a date. Except that Tony opened up the motorcycle and found the thing was a mess. He could just change the battery like he intended, but he prided himself on being the best mechanic for miles around, and he wasn’t going to let anyone leave the shop with a lick-and-a-promise repair. He’d already messed up the diagnostic.

“What’s the matter?” Steve asked worriedly. “You’ve been working for an hour, it looks like half my motorcycle is on that table there, and you keep making distressed noises.”

Tony stood, hitched up his jeans, and ran a hand through his hair. “Um, there’s a lot more wrong with your bike than I thought, and I got carried away.” He flashed a please-forgive-me-I’m-cute smile at Steve.

Steve looked at the partially disassembled bike on the workbench. “I’m sorry for dumping this on you.”

“It’s my fault to begin with — I should have looked further into the problem.” He put his hand on Steve’s very solid bicep. “I can fix this.”

“How about I get us a pizza while you work?” Steve offered.

“Sounds good.”

After pizza and a bit of getting-to-know-you-better talk, Tony worked on the motorcycle while Steve sketched on his tablet. It all felt familiar, like Tony had done this a million times with Steve already. He liked the feeling, the comfort and the solidity. “Hey, I’m just about done here. Want to grab dinner?” Tony asked. “I can drop you at your house afterwards and you can pick up the bike in the morning. I want to run some more tests before I give it back.”

“Sure,” Steve replied. He reached up and wiped a smudge of grease off Tony’s face, leaving Tony somewhat breathless. He’d take his rewards as they were offered.

They could have talked for hours at the diner over dinner, coffee and Steve’s apple pie dessert. “I have no idea where you put all that food,” Tony teased him.

“I was hungry — I spent the afternoon watching a mechanical wizard do surgery on my motorcycle.”

Tony laughed off the compliment. “We should head to your place before Jan kicks us out.”

Steve lived down by the river in a house in a small historic neighborhood filled with houses built after the war. The houses, freshly painted and renovated, gleamed in the streetlights. It fit Steve perfectly — a blend of the old and the new. 

“I had no idea these houses were here.” Tony confessed as they got out of his car.

“A developer is restoring all the houses in the neighborhood. I got a good deal because this is the smallest house on the street. Want the grand tour?”

The door opened to reveal a small entryway with a hall tree and a table covered in mail. Tony took a couple of steps forward into the living room and gasped. The room had floor-to-ceiling windows with a perfect view of the river that bordered the edge of Steve’s property. There was a period restored fireplace, mid-century furniture straight out of a museum catalog, and Steve’s own artwork hung on the walls. 

Steve smiled shyly. “Everyone has that reaction.” 

Tony sat in the leather chair sipping coffee as Steve built a fire in the fireplace. Something nagged at Tony about the artwork. They looked like panels from a comic book or a Hollywood movie — people in colorful costumes and armor in groups or in single poses. The biggest piece featured a guy in red and gold armor laid out on the ground with a man in a red, white, and blue costume kneeling next to him, as the rest of the costumed people stood around in a loose circle. Tony rubbed at the sudden ache in his chest.

“What’s with all the superhero art?”

Steve craned his head to look at the pieces. “I can’t shake the images out of my head — it’s like I’m remembering a different life. No matter how many I paint, I keep getting more ideas.”

“The guy in the armor looks like a mash-up of the Transformers and King Arthur stories.”

“Yeah,” Steve said with a laugh. “I can see that.”

“I used to read about King Arthur all the time when I was a kid, before boarding school.”

“Boarding school?”

They talked until the fire died down and the coffee ran out. “I should get going,” Tony said, reluctant to leave, but standing up anyway.

“When should I be by to pick up my bike? Lunchtime?”

“Is that a date, Mr. Rogers?” Tony joked, batting his eyes at Steve. 

Steve grinned. “Yes, it is, Mr. Stark.”

And as Tony pocketed his keys left in the bowl by the door, Steve kissed him, the soft press of his lips teasing Tony with the promise of more later on. 

“See you tomorrow, Steve,” Tony said to the man in the doorway. He floated to his car and all the way home.

~~~~~

The next morning, Tony struggled not to text Steve the minute he woke up. He walked through the morning in a daze, remembering little things about Steve that kept a smile on his face. He didn’t want to appear desperate, didn’t want to scare Steve off, even though they were planning to meet for lunch. Around 10 am he gave in and texted him.

No reply. Worse, the text never went through. Tony scratched his head. Calling wouldn’t hurt. But the call didn’t go through. He only got the message that the number was not in service.

Strange, he had no problem reaching Steve over the weekend. Last night couldn’t have been that bad that Steve disconnected his phone. That would be a record even for Tony.

“Jan, I’m trying to reach Steve,” he said over the phone.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, tall, handsome, blond, blue eyes, graphic designer, likes his coffee black —”

“Tony, I don’t know anyone like that.”

“Jan, you tried to set us up.”

“I tend to remember the guys I try to set you up with. Hank, do you know a Steve? No? Tony, we don’t know anything about a Steve.”

He called Thor and Bruce and neither of them had heard of Steve. Pepper in the Town Hall had no idea. No one had ever met the man. He was too young to be losing all his marbles. He knew that he had met Steve in the garage, that they went on a date, and they most definitely kissed. He couldn’t have made that up.

The more he thought about Steve, the more the memories became elusive and the details hard to recall. He clutched at the remaining fleeting thoughts and kept reciting Steve’s name over and over. As long as he had a name, he wouldn’t lose Steve.

Tony raced in his car to Steve’s house, that pretty restored mid-century house down by the river. He stopped at the intersection and turned down Steve’s street. All he could see in the bright afternoon sunlight were houses in disrepair with overgrown yards and a wrecker taking down a house. He saw the large billboard declaring the latest luxury home development for Pleasant Hill.

No. This was wrong, all of it wrong. Where were the tidy little post-war homes with their gardens and trees and lit porches? He drove down the street looking at empty lots and large dumpsters full of construction debris. He pulled up to Steve’s house. 

He had loved Steve’s house, the living room that had the great view of the river, the smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen and the snap crackle of the burning logs in the fireplace. All of that gone like a flash of light, just like Steve. He looked at the rundown house with broken windows, caution tape over the front door and rhododendron bush nearly swallowing one side. 

He was even beginning to forget what the blond man’s name had been.

Tony ran up to the door, clinging to the hope that this was all an illusion. He ripped off the caution tape and pushed the door open. A bright light washed over him, blinding and disorienting him.

“Nice try, Stark,” a voice snapped at him. “Better luck next time.”


	6. Steve

Steve woke up feeling drowsy and tired. Last thing he could remember was the Valkyrie slamming hard into the snow and ice covered landscape, the feel of broken bones, tang of blood, water seeping into his uniform and then darkness. Strong light and a slight breeze stirred him awake.

At first, he took inventory as he blinked awake. Everything was still attached and functioning. He had lived with his enhanced body for a couple of years now, but he was always surprised at how fast his body healed. He discovered that he had been laid out fully clothed on a bed with a ballgame playing in the background. 

They had attacked the last Hydra stronghold at the end of March. Had to be April now if there’s a ballgame on the radio. How long was he asleep? And if he can hear the Dodgers, then he must be in New York. And if he’s in New York, how fast can he get back to Europe to be there for wrapping up the war?

Except. Something was not right.

He swung his legs off the bed and sat up. There was a soft mechanical hum underneath the sound of the city streets below. Once he heard it, he couldn’t ignore it. He listened carefully, catching the click of a vent, a whoosh of air, then he noticed that the noises coming from the window seemed to repeat, like that particular car horn. And he got the odd feeling that the noise was not really coming from the streets below. The play-by-play announcer laid out the play and the crowd roared.

No, he knew what was going to happen next. After all, he was hearing the broadcast of the last game at Ebbets Field he gone to with Bucky.

HYDRA. HYDRA had found him and had him.

“Good morning, Captain Rogers, no, good afternoon,” the WAC said as she entered the room. Well, the HYDRA agent posing as a WAC. No WAC would wear her hair or her uniform like that.

His gut and his brain told him to run and get out of there.

He didn’t wait for the agent’s explanation but dashed for the door. He pushed and the room walls collapsed and revealed a large, empty soundstage. He ran past attacking soldiers through a futuristic lobby with windows and shiny surfaces and into a street full of cars and buildings that were familiar, but yet like nothing he’d seen before. He ran even faster to escape his pursuers.

Steve kept running. Until he came to a place he sort of recognized. He stood in what had to be Times Square. But the buildings were mostly new, the billboards larger and brighter and flashier, crowds bigger. Black cars and agents with drawn guns cordoned off the street as Steve looked around, bewildered and lost. 

He was home, seventy years in the future.

An hour later, Fury and SHIELD offered him a place to work and something to do to fill his time. Another war, another fight, and Steve guessed that was all he was good for now.

~~~~~

Steve woke up restless and tired of sleeping. Last memory he had was the rocket underneath him blowing up and a searing blast knocking him backwards and the feeling of uncontrolled falling. He was now in a hospital room hooked up to beeping machines, his arms and legs bound to the bed to immobilize him. HYDRA. That was the only explanation. Otherwise he’d be in a private room in London or Paris if he’d been retrieved from the ocean by the Allies. 

“Where am I?” he demanded. “Tell me! Where am I?” 

Hair fell in his eyes. Damn it, no one cut his hair. He couldn’t see anything but sky and clouds outside the exterior window. He looked around the room, noticed that the interior window revealed a corridor. He had an escape route.

“Captain Rogers —” a nurse said.

Steve pulled at his restraints, sawing back and forth on the bed rails. The metal bent with the strain. He saw guards gathering outside his room.

All of this was wrong. He broke free and knocked out a guard. He preferred not to be fighting barefoot in a flimsy hospital gown. But he had plenty of weapons on hand with trays and medical equipment. The guards flooding his room didn’t have a chance.

A dark-skinned man with an eyepatch and a trench coat talked rapidly into some object in his hand. He barely ducked Steve’s punch as Steve invaded the corridor. 

“Stop — this is not what you are thinking —” someone shouted as he headed for the stairs.

“Captain America is loose in the building. He is dangerous and we are not certain about his mental state. Act with caution,” an announcement blared over an intercom.

Damn right he was dangerous. He hadn’t fought a war to end up some medical experiment for HYDRA. Could use his shield right about now. 

Armed guards blocked the staircase and he could see more guards filling the other end of the corridor. He headed back to his room. Maybe he could get out through the outside window.

“Use the tranquilizers —” one guard shouted.

“How much should we use to take out Captain America?”

“I don’t know — more than you’d use for an elephant?”

Steve grabbed a chair and rammed it through the window, shattering it. All he could tell was that he was in some sort of tall building. At least he wasn’t at the top. He’d survive a fall. He jumped, grabbing at the building exterior to slow his fall.

Guards were gathering at the bottom. He’d have to fight through them too. He began to put together a plan when he noticed the giant man. Before he could figure out what exactly he saw, the giant man swatted him out of the sky and knocked him unconscious.

When he woke again, they explained that he had woken up years in the future. Steve sat sullen and resentful, finding out through cold, clipped words that everything and everyone he had loved was pretty much gone. SHIELD gave him a job and a new uniform and a place to sleep. And he was facing yet another Chitauri invasion within a week.

Just ducky, he thought as he drank the worst coffee he’d ever had in his life, including that day-old swill he’d had at the Battle of the Bulge, as he read over mission reports. Is this what he’d fought for? All he had discovered since he woke up was that everything in the future was a rotten and pale imitation of the world he’d grown up in. Better if they had left him in the ice.

~~~~~

Steve woke up, disoriented and stiff. As far as he could tell he was lying on a cold, hard metal gurney. People were talking but he couldn’t quite tell what they were saying. Then he remembered Bucky kicking him off the rocket, an explosion, and falling into the freezing water of the North Atlantic.

“Is that really him?” a red and gold metal robot said.

“Is his brain okay?” a tiny woman with wings replied as she flitted around the robot’s head.

He sat bolt upright on the gurney. “Bucky!” he shouted, looking around wildly for his friend. He lashed out at the man in the red suit and the Viking. Jumping off of the gurney, he managed to pin the robot against the wall.

“You’re safe, you’re among friends,” the robot said.

“Are you a HYDRA automaton?”

“You’ve been asleep in ice for decades.”

“Where’s Bucky? Where are you taking me?”

Ordinarily, if he wasn’t fighting to escape from HYDRA, he’d be fascinated by the robot with the glowing light in his chest. And the flying woman, the man in the red suit and the Viking with the hammer. But he couldn’t take chances with HYDRA agents. He took a swing at the Viking, knocked down the red-suited man, and ran towards the controls of what he now knew was an airplane. An experimental airplane, probably the last effort of HYDRA scientists.

They tried to stop him from jumping out of the plane, then they tried to subdue him when he landed right next to the Statue of Liberty. Good fighters, all of them. The woman stung him repeatedly to get his attention. 

“Just look!” she insisted pointing to a small statue in the shade of the Statue.

Steve finally stilled as the realization of what had happened washed over him. The robot — no, man — the man in the red and gold robot suit put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Everyone knows that Captain America and Bucky gave their lives to save their country.”

He’d woken up seventy years in the future, all alone, with nothing.

But no matter where and when Steve landed, he inevitably ended up in a fight. That afternoon, he fought Zemo at the mansion and Zola’s doughboys beside his new teammates. They’d won. And had pizza and soda in the mansion kitchen to celebrate and soothe the cuts and bruises.

Later that evening, he sat in the mansion library with Tony Stark, the man in the robot suit. Who smiled at him like he was a person, a friend. Tony gave him a picture of his father Howard Stark with Captain America. Steve remembered meeting Howard, but not the picture. 

“Thanks, Tony, it’s, um, all I have.” 

The weight of the missing years and lost friends suddenly hit him hard and he was on the verge of losing it.

Tony, with his beautiful amber eyes and sad smile, said, “Hey, we’re here for you. I’d love for you to be part of the Avengers. This is your home as long you want to be here.”

Steve nodded. “I think I’d like that.”


	7. Tony

Tony was in New York for the month, trying to leave his problems behind in sunny California. Besides the usual meetings and a couple of charity events to attend, he wanted to check in on the progress of the final Tower renovations. He had a workshop to set up and an armory to build. Even though he wasn’t calling it the armory. Just a place to put some robotics experiments he was working. It wasn’t his fault that the experiments looked an awful lot like Iron Man suits; the resemblance was mere coincidence. 

That morning, he had met with the interior designers to review plans for his Tower apartment. He’d fill Pepper in later, of course. She had already talked to the designers about what she had wanted. Now Tony was on his own for the rest of the day, except for the fundraising event that evening for the victims of the Battle of New York. 

He’d already put in a couple of long days setting up the servers for the Towers. He usually preferred to do the work himself, in case something went wrong with installing JARVIS. Now he was arranging his workshop, setting up his tools exactly the way he wanted and finding out what he needed to order.

Things were humming along, until JARVIS announced, “Sir, there’s breaking news from Washington D.C.”

“Hmmm?” he asked around the screwdriver in his mouth. 

“There has been a helicarrier deployment above the Triskelion. This is likely to have something to do with the recent manhunt for Captain America.”

“What?” Tony dropped the screwdriver.

JARVIS projected several different news channels on a holoscreen. Tony was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of news that had happened over the past three days.

“What have you gotten yourself into, Capsicle?” he said out loud.

Deadly police chase through D.C. at rush hour. Fury dead. Firefight on the highway. Fugitive Captain America caught and returned to SHIELD for questioning. Now there were reports of a massive internal fight among SHIELD agents in the Triskelion and quickly spreading to other SHIELD bases and offices. World Security Council on site. And something strange going on with three launched helicarriers.

The news washed over him as Tony grew increasingly worried. He knew people at SHIELD — lots and lots of people whose lives could be in danger. He thought of Clint and Natasha, but most of all, Steve.

A reporter stationed as close as possible to the Triskelion under siege said, “There are reports that Captain America made an announcement that HYDRA has infiltrated SHIELD and that afterwards a massive firefight broke out in the Triskelion. No one has heard from Alexander Pierce or the World Security Council, all said to be to be in the Triskelion at this time, or from Maria Hill, reputedly the acting director of SHIELD.”

Tony sat hypnotized by the news. He couldn’t shake thoughts about Steve. Not that he’d seen the guy much since the Battle of New York. They met up during a couple of fundraisers and a SHIELD anniversary event and ribbon cutting. He’d heard through the grapevine that Steve was working for a SHIELD strike team, something like Special Ops, he guessed or close enough, and was living for the most part in D.C. Steve had called him about the whole Mandarin-AIM mess and said nice things. Last time he had heard from the man.

He should have done something for Steve. Well, something more than an offer to bury the hatchet and start over, minus the Loki manipulation. He’d found a job for Bruce, and he could have given Steve an option instead of working for SHIELD. 

“Sir, someone has uploaded the entire SHIELD intelligence and records databases to the internet.”

“Download and store,” Tony replied, distracted by the new reports of fighting and explosions on the helicarriers in the air.

He watched with millions of other people the helicarriers turn in the sky and fire on each other, raining destruction on the burning Triskelion, D.C. and the Potomac. 

Another news report announced, “Captain America — Captain Steve Rogers — is reportedly on one of the helicarriers that just exploded over D.C.”

Steve! The guy that had his back when he needed it, gave him that extra inspiration to find it in himself to redirect that nuclear weapon into space. He had thought about what Steve would have done when he invaded that Miami mansion in search of the Mandarin. 

Funny, he had lived all his life in the shadow of the great Captain America, but had barely known the man a couple of years. And here he was glued to the news, wondering if Steve was alive.

A falling helicarrier took out one tower of the Triskelion and significantly damaged the other towers. Initial damage statistics flooded the news, with news of the dead, injured and property damage. Tony watched all night.

But nothing, nothing at all about Steve. Except for rampant speculation that Captain America was counted among the dead. Tony poured himself a drink and looked out over the New York skyline and thought that the world suddenly felt infinitely emptier without Steve.


	8. Steve

Steve marched down one of the Tower’s halls knowing that Tony was in his workshop. The other Avengers followed him like debris pulled into a tornado. He ignored them as they plucked at his arms and back and asked questions.

Clint demanded, “Does anyone know what’s going on?”

Still he said nothing. There was only one person on the entire earth he wanted to talk to, and that person was on the other side of that door. Rage built in his heart as he remembered what had happened. All of it. 

Tony had sold him out to the other Illuminati. His friend for years upon years let other people brainwash him. All because Steve didn’t agree with their plans. Tossed aside and discarded like trash. He was so angry he could tear down the fortified door with his bare hands.

“Stark!” he roared. “Come out here!” 

The door slid open and Steve charged in, navigating through the darkened room filled half-completed armors and machines to find Tony hard at work. 

“Hi, Steve,” he said.

“How could you do that to me?” snarled Steve. His rage was now at a boiling point, scaring their teammates who were used to his anger aimed at supervillains and invading aliens. Never at Tony.

“Well, you know,” Tony replied. He was going to try to bluff his way out, talk Steve into seeing things his way or deflect the anger. “You know how you are. Couldn’t be helped.”

God, he hated Tony with the fire of a thousand suns. No one else could have betrayed him as thoroughly. Tony went for the armor, but Steve decked him first. He felt Tony’s nose break under his fist and was grimly satisfied.

~~~~~

Steve stared at Tony across the edge of his shield. He had blocked Tony’s repulsors before Tony could mow him down. Tony gritted his teeth and glared in defiance. There was no way they were getting out of this without killing the other. 

He’d nearly forgotten what they were fighting for. “Focus, Rogers, focus,” he hissed. “Stark’s not the fight.”

~~~~~

Breath filled his lungs and Steve gasped as the toxin dissipated. Tony leaned above, giving him CPR to bring him back from the brink. “Tony,” he choked out. Tony was beautiful in the hazy light and mercifully alive and unhurt. 

“Come and get him,” Tony said. “He’s out of the woods.”

“Tony -- you didn’t --” Steve said panicking. Tony had taken off the helmet that was his only shield from the toxic air. He could die.

Men covered from head to toe in hazmat suits hustled into the room to retrieve Steve. “Tony,” he cried out as Tony started to collapse as the toxin seeped into his mouth.

“Okay. ‘S okay, Cap, you’re needed,” Tony gasped out weakly.

“No. You’re important too, Tony. Come on,” he tugged on the armor. “Both of us are getting out of this, mister.”

He waited by Tony’s bedside for hours until Tony sprang back to life, asking for coffee and news. He nearly kissed Tony out of sheer relief.

~~~~~

“Wake up, Steve. Bad dreams?”

Steve took a deep breath, feeling sore, bruised and worn from the fight. “That depends. What kind of world am I waking up to?”

He could practically see Tony smile through the armor. Tony gripped his hand tightly. “Ours.”

Steve smiled widely. They had won a space war. They all had. And nothing was more beautiful than waking up to Tony, who had fought beside him.

~~~~~

Steve sat in what had become his chair in the library. He had a glass of water on the end table, a stack of books at his feet and no desire to read at two in the morning. The mansion walls were closing in on him, but he couldn’t find a way to scratch his itch or put away his restless thoughts.

“Know what you need? A night out,” Tony announced from the doorway.

“What?”

“Time to get out. All you’ve been doing all week is training, reading mission reports, or eating.” Tony came over and nudged him. “Come on.”

Ten minutes later and Steve was in the foyer pulling on gloves. “Where are we going at this time of night?”

Tony laughed. “It’s New York — there’s bound to be a diner open somewhere. Whoops — hope you don’t mind snow.”

They walked a mile in the first snow of the year. Big, thick flakes fell from the sky and melted on the sidewalk. The flakes coated Tony’s long, dark lashes as he told Steve funny stories from Stark Industries. There was a diner open and warm, and Tony drank coffee and Steve ate a stack of pancakes while they talked and looked at the street filling with slush. 

Steve poked Tony with a foot and Tony pushed back. They laughed when they realized how competitive they gotten over the space under the diner table. 

“I miss the team,” Tony admitted. “I should come back.”

“You can always come back — there’s always a spot for you, Iron Man.” Steve smiled at Tony, handsome with his dark hair and steely-blue eyes. “It’d be great to fight by your side again.”

“What would be great is if you came on a trip with me next week, no questions asked,” Tony replied.

“Aw, you know — the team …”

“I know,” Tony said gently. “There’s always something — but you’re getting, I don’t know, intense? Obsessed? I come back to the team and you come on vacation with me, get a good airing out.”

Steve turned a napkin over and over in his hands. Tony had a good point — he had been focused too much on rebuilding and all that. If it wasn’t for Tony, he’d run himself into the ground. “Just you and me on that vacation?”

“I can’t promise no supervillains, but yeah, you and me.”

“You’ve got a deal.”

They’d been through a lot, Tony and him, and some of those times terrible. But he still couldn’t imagine a world without Tony. No one could push his buttons like Tony could, but no one else could read him as well or know what he was thinking. “If we go on vacation, I bet you that’s when the Skrulls invade again.”

“How would we know?” Tony shot back.

Steve nearly passed out from laughing so hard. Things were just better with Tony around. No rush to get back to the mansion. They could sit here for the rest of the night drinking coffee and flicking sugar packets at each other and watching the snow fall thick on the city streets. 

He clinked his coffee mug against Tony’s. “To the Avengers.”


	9. Tony

Tony woke up on a hard bed covered with empty whiskey bottles. The morning light peeking through the holes in the curtains hurt his eyes. No helping it, the whole place smelled like an open sewer. He swallowed a couple of times, then dragged himself out of bed.

He shuffled over to a table with a pitcher and a broken mirror. Raking his unruly hair back into place, he looked in the mirror. Getting older every day and with every drink. Although he didn’t feel quite right this morning. Like something was terribly wrong with him.

No. Something was terribly wrong. Not with him. Something wrong with the town. Fisk was going after Rogers. 

He threw on clothes and went downstairs to watch and wait. He could take care of customers as needed. He sat down in the usual spot outside his blacksmith shop, where he could see the entire main street of Timely. If he didn’t think about the terrible trouble over their heads, it was a pleasant enough day to be sitting outside, and he had a nice bottle of whiskey at hand. The last of the good stuff he had shipped from San Francisco.

Sheriff Rogers was going about his business. A treat for his horse, extending a friendly hand to newcomers, cuffing a petty thief. He waved cheerfully at Stark. Beautiful, bright sunshine Rogers who treated Stark with far more kindness and gentleness than a man with his sins deserved. 

Stark knocked back another swig from the bottle. People were walking up and down the street, ducking into stores or catching up on news. The sun rose in the sky and Stark had a hope that maybe Fisk had called off the war with Rogers.

But Tony was wrong, so, so wrong.

He caught sight of Bullseye and sang his warning song to Rogers. He had not meant for Danny Boy as signal for impending disaster, but it served the purpose. He could see Rogers in the jailhouse now, alert and ready with his gun. Bullseye wasn’t going to get the drop on Rogers. But then Tony lost sight of Bullseye. He looked around frantically for the man.

Rogers walked out of the jailhouse, right into an ambush that Stark had not anticipated. Bullseye shoot Rogers through the back, laying him out, wheezing and bleeding out in the sand of the main street.

Rogers. They had killed Rogers.

_Steve._

His Steve. Lost.

He barely noticed the women who dragged him back into the building, telling him to keep out of sight and to lie low. He drank and ranted and fought anyone who tried to comfort him. They warned him to be quiet or else he’d be dead too.

It didn’t matter. From that moment onward, he was a dead man walking. And he’d make the men responsible burn to pay for Rogers’ death.


	10. Steve

“Remember, at 2 o’clock you have an interview with a couple of writers,” his secretary Rikki announced as she read from her tablet. “I’ve scheduled that for a couple of hours, depending on how you feel, Steve.”

“What do they want to know?” Steve asked. He couldn’t think of any anniversary or other news that would have prompted reporters to interview him. He shifted in the armchair, knocking over his cane that had been leaning against the side.

Bernie leaned over to pat his arm. “I can be there if you want me to. I’m your lawyer, after all.”

Steve nodded. Being in his nineties was like other people’s seventies. But there were days when he felt every inch his age, regardless of the serum. “But you were planning to leave for New York today.”

“I can put off my meeting with the ACLU — I can meet over the phone if they can’t wait.” 

“I think after this many years I can handle journalists,” he replied. He could, of course; he had had years of practice. But reporters and interviewers asked harder questions these days -- more of the “why didn’t you do this or that” variety than “what was it like when.” 

“And I’ll be here too,” Rikki reassured him. “You know, in case they ask about mutants.”

Bernie scoffed, “Maybe. There’s always something. I’ll leave you some releases and contracts in case you need them, Rikki. Don’t let Steve say anything if they won’t sign.” 

“Thanks, Bernie,” Rikki said. 

She stood up. “I’ll be back for the weekend, Steve.” 

Steve sometimes wondered what could have happened if he wasn’t so old, and Bernie Rosenthal didn’t love being the one of the best human and mutant rights lawyers in the world above everything else. He loved that about her — her dedication, intelligence, fierceness. They had met by accident at a party in New York several years ago, and she ended up becoming his lawyer and shield against the world. But he always had that unsettled feeling of maybe and missed opportunities. 

“Are you ready to go through your mail?” Rikki asked. “Or did you want to read that new history of WWII you ordered?”

He’d prefer to go for a week but he had been chair-bound for the past couple of weeks after emergency surgery on his knee. Answering mail would eat up the empty time before the reporters showed up. “Let’s do the mail.”

After lunch, Rikki brought him back to his office to wait for the journalists. He loved his office, which overlooked a small rolling hill and woods in the distance. Eisenhower had told him about this farm not far from his own property. Steve bought it without even looking. And it turned out to be a good retirement place for the former Captain America and NASA astronaut. 

He could hear Rikki greeting his visitors outside in the hallway. “I should warn you, Ms. Frost, Mr. Logan and Mr. Cage — he tires more easily than he lets on. I’ll have to end the interview in that case.”

“Tires easily?” one of the men asked Rikki as they entered the office. “He’s Captain America —.”

Steve had met with countless journalists over the years, and he shouldn’t have been so surprised to see a tall, blonde woman in a white tailored suit, a black man in a t-shirt and jeans, and a smaller, hairier man in a flannel shirt. He glanced over at Rikki, who returned an imperceptible shrug. “General Rogers, your guests,” she said by way of introduction.

It had been many many years since Steve had faced obvious disappointment from people. Most people concealed it far better than his current visitors were able. Like they were expecting to see someone far different than an old, retired veteran. The two men exchanged shocked looks with the woman, Ms. Frost, shaking her head at them. Now Steve was more intrigued about why they were there.

Ms. Frost sat down in the chair next to him and pulled a notebook from her purse. “We’re with the Daily Bugle and wanted to ask a few questions for an upcoming anniversary issue.”

She wasn’t a professional journalist, Steve could tell. But she was a charming woman, and these days he didn’t get the chance to meet many new people, so he wasn’t inclined to question much. The days were long gone when someone would have tried to assassinate him. He glanced over at the two men, who were inspecting framed photographs and memorabilia on the wall. “I’ll try to answer the best I can,” he replied.

“You were married?” the short man — Mr. Logan — asked, pointing to a photo on the wall.

The woman sighed and rolled her eyes. “My colleague —”

“Didn’t do his homework,” Mr. Cage finished, giving Mr. Logan a dark look. “Ask about the moon landing.”

Steve knew that photo like the back of his hand. Peggy, the Invaders, one of the best days of his life. Everyone said he looked like he had won the lottery. But that was when he was still Captain America, before the anti-mutant McCarthy hearings that wrecked his military career, before his Pennsylvania farm, before NASA and the moon landing, when he had lots of friends. Before he was revealed as a disappointment and failure to everyone around him.

Peggy wasn’t the first person to accuse him of failure, but she was one of the most important.

An empty room, one more broken promise, one more mission, one more talk, one more government position — any one of those was the final straw to break the back of his marriage. He came home to find Peggy with a packed suitcase. “I don’t know what you want, Steve. No one knows. What makes you happy? You can’t tell me, you can’t tell yourself. I can’t live like this with someone who’s sleepwalking through life doing whatever other people want you to do.” 

He should have felt worse that her leaving him didn’t hurt as much as it should have. He barely noticed her absence after two weeks. And life continued as it always did, with the usual work and calls and demands. Work and training and planning filled his life, until it suddenly didn’t.

He preferred to remember being an astronaut. “What you would like to know about NASA?” 

Ms. Frost looked deeply concerned. “We would like to hear in your words what it was like to be the first man on the moon. Yes, that’s why we’re here.”

He loved being an astronaut, but he had to retire from even that in time. He should have found a way to fund the agency for more exploration and expansion, should have been willing to take on being administrator. So many people had been counting on him. Again, another failure.

“You gave up being Captain America because you wouldn’t give up your mutant friends?” Logan asked. 

For all the good it did anyone, Steve thought. Bernie had been after him for years to run for public office and to run on a pro-mutant rights platform. He let her down on that. He wasn’t a man cut out for politics. And the American public had made it clear that they wanted him to talk about fighting HYDRA, not talk about human and mutant rights. Better the legend than the flesh-and-blood man.

“We don’t have all the time in the world.” Logan marched up to them. “What do you remember? Anything?” he demanded.

“I’ve been around a long time, son,” Steve replied coolly. “I have lots of memories.”

He could tell these strangely acting people wanted something from him. But he had no idea what. He was an old, unwanted man who had spent too much time on work and what other people wanted, so he had nothing now at all. Once these people were gone and Rikki went home, the day ahead stretched out empty and lonely. 

“Emma, this was a bad idea,” Cage said. “We shouldn’t have bothered Cap.”

Cap. That brought back flashes of memories or memories of memories and daydreams. Fleeting thoughts of things that happened to other people. “Do you know Tony Stark?” Steve blurted out. “Is he okay?”

Ms. Frost looked him steadily in the eye. “General Rogers, don’t worry about anything. We’re sorry to have bothered you.” Whatever Steve was thinking disappeared as if it never happened.

“We should be going,” Ms. Frost announced, picking up her purse. “Thank you for your time, General Rogers.”

Steve stood to shake their hands goodbye. Logan looked like he was about to ask a question, but Ms. Frost and Mr. Cage glared at him. And that was the end of the visit.

Although he was left with a lingering curiosity about Tony Stark and why he couldn’t forget that name.


	11. Tony

Tony fell gasping out of the portal and landed on his ass on the floor. He closed his eyes to center himself. But the scene featuring Steve being shot to death played over and over again. He ached from loss. 

But, wait, he was in the armor. His own beautiful red and gold armor, dinged and dented and roughed up from the fights with Ultron. He wasn’t that Tony who lived in a dusty mining town somewhere out West. 

Where was he now? He breathed in deeply and got ready to face whatever he was facing.

“So, where did you come from?” someone who sounded like him asked.

Tony opened his eyes as he struggled to his feet. At least this time he was in a lab, from what he could tell from the vast array of scientific equipment around the portal he came through. There was another Tony in a glowy undersuit aiming a gauntlet repulsor at him. 

“Where am I?” he asked.

“Um, Reed? What’s the deal with the Skrull?” the other Tony asked. He seemed to be a clone of Tony, except for being shorter, with amber eyes, and complicated hair with sentient bangs. “I thought we got rid of them all.”

Reed, imprisoned behind a large computer set-up, snaked an arm over to them to wave a scanner of some sort over Tony. “Not a Skrull. Human.” Herbie chirped agreement.

“Where am I?” Tony asked again. He guessed that they were in one of Reed’s labs in the Baxter Building, but one never knew for certain in the superhero business.

“No, the question is not where on earth we are, but what universe we are in,” Reed replied, craning his head up from his computers. “It’s a meaningless question, if there is a Baxter Building and a New York City in both of our universes.”

“Right,” Undersuit Tony said. He exchanged a tired look with Tony. Must have been a long day already. Tony could sympathize — Reed could be tough to deal with after an hour and being low on coffee.

“We are Earth-8096.” Reed tapped away at a computer. “I can’t tell which universe you are from.”

“You dealt with a Skrull invasion recently?” Tony asked Undersuit.

Undersuit looked stricken. “We’re doing the cleanup right now. But you —” He inspected Tony’s armor more closely. “You could use some help with that suit. And some food. Definitely coffee.”

Reed said pointedly, “We’re not done with the experiment.”

“We can catch up later after we send Mr. Ragtag Suit home.” Seeing Tony’s skeptical look, Undersuit said, “You gotta admit that armor has seen better days.”

Sue gave them lunch in a room off the lab. Tony took the armor off and started feeling a lot more human once he had a sandwich and coffee in him. He stretched out on the couch with his arms behind his head. 

Undersuit fiddled with one of the jet boots and frowned at the scratched paintwork. “Looks like you’ve been through a hard time.”

“Possessed by Ultron, quarantined to a separate dimension by Dr. Strange, and sent through the multiverse. Just the usual superhero thing. More coffee?”

The other Tony filled his mug again. “Ultron?”

“Long story.” Steve, though. He couldn’t forget the look on Steve’s face when Strange told them them that Tony was trapped and couldn’t go home. 

“Do you think you’re still ‘possessed’?” Undersuit narrowed his eyes. “How can that even happen? Our Ultron goes for replicating AI, mind control and robots.”

Tony ran a hand down over his face. Ugh. “I — I haven’t thought — well, my Ultron went the virus route.”

“We’ll fix that,” Undersuit stated. “Not a problem. Not like you were dealing with a Skrull invasion.” He shuddered.

“What happened?”

Undersuit ran a hand through his hair as he stared off to the side. “They got into every major and minor superhero team, as well as AIM, Serpent Society, SWORD — and it turned out that Mockingbird was the Queen. Mockingbird, of all possible SHIELD agents. Fury was the only one who had any suspicions.”

“At least they didn’t get into the Avengers.”

The other Tony laughed hollowly. “No, that was worse — they replicated Captain America.”

“Steve. They got Steve?” He couldn’t even imagine what the other Tony had gone through with losing his Steve.

“Yeah, the second after we got back from saving Asgard, they nabbed him. We didn’t know for a few months. Steve was stuck in a windowless cell on the Skrull mothership outside Saturn. I had no idea. They tortured him, thought he was useless and meaningless.” Undersuit’s lips trembled and the hand on his thigh clenched into a fist. 

“Did you get him back? Your Steve?” Tony asked gently. Because he had already learned that the answer could be bad.

“Yeah — but the Skrulls nearly destroyed him. It’s been a rough month of Steve dealing with bad press and people turning on him. He’s doing his best, you know.” A fond smile snuck across the other Tony’s face. “Steve’s working overtime to get people back on his side. I don’t know if you have a Steve —”

Tony could imagine his own Steve dealing with a ruined reputation. He didn’t like the feeling. “You’re not letting him go it alone though, right?”

“I’m fighting for him — can’t imagine doing anything less. You know how it is with Steve. Assuming you have a Steve.”

“My Steve’s the reason I want to go home.”

Undersuit said, “He’s your Steve, then?”

Tony smiled thinking of Steve. “He is now. Feels like a lifetime since I’ve seen him …”

The other Tony sat back in his chair and stroked his chin, eyes downcast. “I left the Avengers because the Skrulls were tearing the team apart, and I didn’t know what was happening. Well, I didn’t know it was Skrulls undermining the team.”

“But you’re back now.”

“I came back because of Steve. It’s not the Avengers without him. I didn’t need a team — I thought I could do it all by myself. Then I ended up working with Ant-Man, Wasp and Thor — we didn’t gel as a team until Steve. You know — that whole deal with us finding him in the ice and then he pulled the team together.”

“Wait — you found him? Not SHIELD?”

“Hahaha, no. Could you imagine what would happen if Fury found Steve in the ice?”

Tony nodded slowly. SHIELD had found his Captain America and unfroze him. But the idea of Steve being woken by people who thought of him as a potential friend and ally and not only the legendary soldier intrigued him. Things might have gone better for Steve. 

“So, your Steve, I bet he’s staying in the Tower, living in the uniform, only leaving to fight supervillains and invading aliens, training if he’s not sleeping, all that jazz.”

The other Tony sighed. “It’s a mansion — don’t you — never mind. But yeah, Steve’s destroying himself over the Skrull invasion. Blames himself for it. Not that anybody can see what’s going on, they chalk it up to Steve being Steve.”

“But you do, and you know it’s not good for him.” Tony swung his feet off the couch and leaned forward towards Undersuit. “Why are you here and not out doing something about it?”

Undersuit glared at him, then slumped back into his chair. He shook his head. “I keep failing him — I didn’t notice that he had been replaced by a Skrull, and now I’m letting him run himself down.”

Tony put a hand on the other Tony’s shoulder. “Trust me on this. Steve isn’t thinking you let him down. Not in a million years. But he does need you right now.”

“Me?”

“If he’s anything like my Steve, he already listens to you more than anyone else. You’re the one who can reach him — he’ll tear himself apart with guilt and anger. He needs someone to tell him he’s not Captain America all the time, that he needs to be Steve Rogers sometimes. Not many people are willing to say that to him. You are, though, if you’re anything like me.”

Undersuit jumped to his feet. “Let’s get you home. I’ve got work to do back at the mansion.”

While Reed and Undersuit purged anything left of Ultron in his system, Tony repaired his suit. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do for now. He could hear the low, excited hum of conversation from Reed and the other Tony as they hustled around the lab. Of all that he had dealt with in the past few months, this hit too close to the bone with memories of his workshop and working with Bruce and Sam. 

“Ready to go?” the other Tony asked.

“Ready when you are.”

They positioned him in front of the portal. Reed pressed a tool into Tony’s hands. “Here, take this.”

Tony turned the tool over. It didn’t look like much, with a numerical keypad, small screen and a sleek black case holding all the electronics. “What is this?”

“It’s a multiverse portal navigator. It will open a portal to the universe you want to go to. Press the number here and there you go.”

“Do you know my universe number?” he asked.

“I don’t,” Reed admitted. “The Council of Reeds meets every other month and just about every multiverse Reed has attended. There are few missing ones, though.”

“Right.”

“I’ve made some calculations, and after triangulating the list of known universes, I’ve been able to pinpoint your likely universe. You appear to be from Earth-12041.”

“But if turns out to be wrong, I can try again with this.” Tony waved the tool at Reed.

“Absolutely.”

The portal whooshed open. Tony reached out as his HUD streamed data about the portal energy. “Here goes nothing. Thanks, guys, for everything.” He turned back and waved at Reed and Undersuit Tony.

As he stepped through the portal, he heard Reed shouting at him about someone or something controlling the portal. It was too late to turn around and he was caught up in the portal and spun towards another universe.

~~~~~

Tony stepped out the other side of the portal into an empty, echoing room. Could be the Avengers compound, from what he could tell from the airplane hanger feel of the large room. Home again. But no signs of the team or an Avengejet.

The portal closed behind him. Tony checked the tool Reed gave him. He turned around and pushed a purple button. Another portal opened with a satisfying whoosh and swirly purple lights. The gauge prompted him for a number. Ah, so he could travel back from where he came from or go to a different universe. He pushed another button and the portal closed and disappeared.

The possibilities were mind blowing. 

But not now. “Where’s Captain America?” Tony asked aloud.

“Welcome home, Mr. Stark,” FRIDAY said cheerfully. “The Avengers are on a mission to find Captain America. Shall I tell them you are back?”

“Nice to hear your voice, FRIDAY. Not that it wasn’t great over Sam’s radio, but you sound a lot better here in this oversized quonset hut.”

“Nice to hear yours, Mr. Stark, with less Ultron.”

Tony laughed. “Feels great with less Ultron.” He looked around the messy work area, complete with a workbench with a couple of coffee mugs and papers covered with notes. “What happened to Steve?”

“Captain Rogers was pulled into a portal during your last phone call home. Falcon has been trying to locate him.”

Oh. That was not good. 

Remaining in the armor, Tony sat down at what had to be Sam’s computer, considering the pile of engineering textbooks. Good to see that Sam was keeping up with his studies. He booted up the computer and pulled up a couple of holoscreens. He watched the recording of Steve being sucked up into a portal. He stopped the video to drink in the first images of his Steve since he was exiled to Strange’s pocket dimension. 

He leaned back in his chair. Something had happened to Steve and to him to cause them to be tossed into the multiverse. The memories of traveling in other universes, of other Steves and Tonys, and of living their lives were overwhelming. At least now he was in his own body, in his own armor, back home. 

What did it all mean?

He leaned forward towards the holoscreens. His elbow dislodged a notebook partially tucked behind Sam’s books. His heart ached as he opened it. He knew it was Steve’s as soon as he turned a page — a notebook full of sketches of him, Steve’s labor of love while Tony was in exile. He set the sketchbook down, accidentally nudging the portal tool off the table.

The tool hit the floor and opened a portal. This was a different portal from the earlier one — all solid gray light. He snatched up the tool as a tentacle of gray light slithered out of the portal and grabbed his ankle.


	12. Steve

When Steve woke up this time, he found himself on a nice leather couch in the corner of a lab. His mind was fogged and he couldn’t figure out where he was. He could hear the familiar hum of the Tower mechanical systems and Tony’s workshops. Maybe he’d overslept in Tony’s lab and had terrible dreams about Ultron and losing Tony. 

Tony had likely turned off his music so that Steve could sleep. Not that that ever bothered Steve. They should go to dinner at that place Clint told them about and then for a walk in Central Park. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He could sleep a little longer, he didn’t get to do that very often.

“Are you awake?” someone familiar asked. If Steve didn’t know better, he would have thought that he just asked himself a question. The person in question put a hand on his shoulder.

He opened his eyes and looked at up at a near copy of himself. He nearly jumped out of his skin. “What —”

“It’s okay, you’re in a different universe,” a woman with very dark hair and blue eyes said to him. She stood next to his clone. 

They both looked kind, even though Steve was a bit rattled at how closely the woman resembled Tony. Except for the blue eyes. And they were unarmed and wearing civilian clothing. Although if his clone was anything like him, the clone would be ready to take him down with or without a weapon. 

“A different universe?”

“Yep,” the woman said cheerfully. “We get multiverse visitors all the time. I’m Natasha Stark — I’m assuming you are a Steve Rogers?”

“Steve Rogers,” he agreed. “And you —?”

“I’m Steve Rogers, too. Would you like something to eat? Jarvis can make us dinner and we can figure out how to get you home.”

Rogers, as he called this world’s Steve, showed him to a guest suite in case he wanted a nap or a shower and a change of clothes before dinner. As Steve combed his hair, he wondered how many other Steves like him had stayed in this suite. He had found lots of clothes just his size in the bureau and closet. Plus clothes that looked suspiciously like things that Tony would wear, but in many different sizes. Maybe he should take a nap after all, he didn’t know if he was up for the whole multiverse thing.

“Dinner is served” came the announcement from a speaker in the wall. And lit floor tiles guided him to a pleasant dining room at the end of the hall. He figured out from the layout that Natasha and Rogers had specifically set aside rooms with living areas on this floor to house guests away from their and the team’s suites and floors. A good, sensible plan. He’d do the same in the same situation.

Rogers said, “I hope you don’t mind steak. It’s what Jarvis had in the kitchen.” 

Steve was voraciously hungry. “Thank you, this is very generous —”

“It’s the least we can do,” Rogers replied. “You’re our guest.”

“We’ve got one of those Caps this time? The nice kind?” Natasha asked. She had changed into a dress that reminded Steve of one Tony’s favorite outfits, the maroon silk shirt and gray pants he’d worn on his first ‘official’ date with Steve.

“We’re all polite. That’s how Sarah raised us,” Rogers pointed out. “We get all kinds here,” he explained to Steve with an eyeroll from Natasha implying that Rogers was understating things by quite a bit.

Steve guessed his opposite number wasn’t likely to think badly of the other versions of themselves. He wouldn’t. Better to be optimistic. “Can I —”

“Help yourself,” Natasha replied cheerfully as she took a seat at the table.

Steve liked Rogers and Natasha. They’d been married a couple of years and were the co-leaders of this world’s Avengers team. They had fought some of the same villains and aliens as he had. But the differences were clear too — their team had a James Van Dyne and a Hanna Pym, a Valkyrie, a Shuri and a Hawkeye of indeterminate gender. 

“The steak is delicious,” Steve said, tucking into his second one. Whoever Jarvis was, he was a genius and clearly knew how to cook for two Captain Americas. “Thank you.”

Rogers beamed at Natasha, and Steve thought of his own Tony lost out there somewhere. He shouldn’t be enjoying himself this much until Tony was safe.

“So all we have to do is figure out which universe you are from and the right portal and we can send you home. It shouldn’t take too long —”

“And you’ll be back with your Tony,” Rogers finished. 

Steve tipped his head to the side. “This doesn’t seem very surprising to you.”

“We tend to be some sort of way station for the multiverse,” Natasha replied. “There is some version of Steve Rogers or Tony Stark that pops through a portal every month or so. We’ve even hosted the Council of Reeds a few times. It’s usually a portal malfunction or some Asgardian messing around with magic. Nothing we can’t handle.”

Rogers added, “As long as you are here, this floor is yours — the living room is through there, a small kitchenette with food, and a gym at the other end of the hallway. We do ask that you stay on this floor — it’s for your —”

“And your safety,” Steve agreed.

Natasha pulled up a couple of holoscreens. “If you don’t mind, could you tell me what happened?”

“Don’t take all night — I want to catch the game in a half-hour,” Rogers said. “It’s the Dodgers versus the Yankees —”

“Which Dodgers?” Steve asked.

“The Brooklyn Dodgers. Oh.” Rogers’ face fell. “What happened to yours?”

“Los Angeles Dodgers.” They both groaned. Steve said, “They’re doing great this year, but I follow the Mets more.”

“I’ll just watch the game up here — Natasha tolerates baseball.”

“Tony tolerates it too,” Steve replied with a fond smile.

“Fine, watch the game — but we need info to get this Steve home, because your new friend here needs to go back home. His Iron Man needs him more than you need a sports buddy.”

Steve told Natasha all he remembered. The hangar, Tony over the radio, the portal. He thought he’d been traveling, but he couldn’t say where. Natasha ran a couple of scans as they talked and she asked pointed questions.

“You felt like you’ve been traveling, but you don’t remember coming out of that portal until you woke up on our couch?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” She tapped thoughtfully on her holoscreens. “You have a lot of different energy signatures — so you have been traveling through the multiverse. Maybe it was your consciousness that jumped through the portals, not your physical body. That’s happens sometimes.”

“We’ve seen it all,” Rogers said with a touch of weariness.

“I’ll have to run more detailed scans later, but I’d say that the anomaly happened when you were sucked into the first portal. You should have come physically out on the other side of that portal, not traveling through other consciousnesses. But now you’re here on our side of the most recent portal, so something got corrected when you were traveling. Huh, more to this than I expected.”

Rogers suggested, “You could call Reed.”

Natasha scoffed. “No way in hell. Run along, boys, and I’ll work this out.”

Steve enjoyed the hell out of watching the genuine Brooklyn Dodgers playing in a renovated Ebbets Field. He sat comfortably in a leather chair, with a beer in one hand and popcorn on the ottoman. He could even track the players — the names were similar to the ones on the Mets, for the most part. 

“Natasha says that you get multiverse guests regularly?” he asked, curious about what his hosts had encountered.

Rogers sighed. “Lots of ‘em. We never know what will come out of the portal. The worst time we had was with the Steve and Tony octopi that oozed out of the portal. Tony the Octopus was rather put out about staying in a bathtub until we could set up the tanks.”

Steve snorted and took a sip of his beer. “Tony is the same in every universe.”

“Pretty much.”

“Do you think that Natasha will find my Tony and we could go home together?” Steve asked hopefully.

Rogers shook his head doubtfully. “We could try, but portals are a trickier business than Natasha or Reed like to let on.”

As promised, Natasha ran fuller, more extensive scans in the morning. “We have cataloged nearly every major multiverse and given each place a number. We don’t have your universe on file. But I can guess where you need to go.”

Steve was back in his uniform sitting at a table with coffee and a fruit bowl. Natasha understood her Steves. “Can you find a given Tony?”

“No. The science is inexact and portals have different properties and energies. Most travel through dimensional portals is pretty straightforward — you go in here and jump out there. You, however, didn’t come that way. Now, I think I can send you back home the way you came. But I can’t find your Tony at all in my scans. If you want to wait, I could call Reed in and —”

“You’ve been generous to me — I really should go. It sounds like the best bet is for me to be home with my team where we can continue our work on getting Tony back.”

“You’re not a burden, Steve,” Natasha said with an understanding smile. “You’ve been one of the best guests we’ve had.” She poked a couple of holoscreens. 

“Step up to the portal and get ready to go.” Rogers shook his hand in farewell.

“Ready,” Steve replied, standing in front of the portal.

“Wait — something’s not right here,” Natasha said. “There are two energy sources — one seems to be manipulating the portals I’m dialing up.”

“Should we wait to send him back?” Rogers asked.

Steve heard a familiar hum and snap and crackle. He lifted the shield, expecting the portal energy to whip out like it had before. 

“We might not have a choice in the matter.”

Rogers bounded over to Steve, his own shield at the ready. The portal sprang to life in front of them. Steve could clearly see a Tony working in a lab on the other side. 

“Tony?” he asked, stepping towards the portal.

“That might not be your Tony,” Rogers warned. “That could be the anomaly Natasha found.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Steve said as he stepped into the portal.

“Send us wedding pictures when you —” Natasha shouted after him.


	13. Steve

Steve passed his coffee mug between his hands as he scanned the empty cafeteria full of worn leather furniture, big windows, warm ambient light, and wood tables; more like a high-end coffee shop than a SHIELD cafeteria. The coffee tasting a bit odd and the New York City skyline full of strange buildings and construction cranes reminded him that he was in yet another different universe. The Captain America across from him hadn’t touched his coffee at all. 

He appreciated that the other Captain America had managed to get him into an open space. Comfortable and familiar enough for him to be at ease, but isolated so that he could be controlled if he caused problems. The other Steve, heavier, buzzcut, with a permanent scowl on his face, knew that he knew. They had already tested each other over where they would sit. Steve wanted somewhere close to a door, while Gruff Steve wanted him trapped near a wall. They both knew that the windows and the location of the cafeteria on one of highest floors in the building meant nothing to either of them. Offense versus defense, and the deck was nearly always stacked in favor of defense. Gruff Steve got what he wanted.

Steve also suspected that there was a platoon of SHIELD agents waiting outside the cafeteria and more on call throughout the building. The agents and scientists had been pleasant but wary when Steve stepped out of a portal and into their lab. This universe’s Captain America had been watching whatever portal demonstration or testing was going on. He scooped up Steve immediately and brought him to the cafeteria after a short, tense conversation. 

“Before Fury locks you up,” Gruff Steve had explained.

He wasn’t sure what to make of Gruff Steve. Like him, but not him, at the same time. He could sense the roiling anger under the other man’s skin, the discomfort around other people, and the constant watchful tension in his eyes. A weapon ready to be aimed and unleashed. Steve wondered if he was ever like that. “How long have you been out of the ice?”

Gruff Steve snorted. “A few years too long.” He leaned back in his chair and looked out the window, letting his guard down just a bit. “You were in the ice, too.” 

“Nearly all of us, almost all the other Steves in the multiverse. A few exceptions here and there.” 

“Right.” The other Steve grimaced. “Your family still alive when SHIELD found you?”

“Family?”

“Mom, Dad, Douglas, Douglas’ kids. Gail. Bucky.”

They shared some basic things — scrawny kid bullied growing up, experimental super soldier program, fighting in the war, years frozen in the north Atlantic and working for SHIELD. But maybe that’s all that they had in common, that and the name Steven Grant Rogers. “My mother died when I was in high school, my dad died years before. Never had a brother or sister — I’m assuming that’s your Douglas and Gail.”

“Douglas was my brother — Gail was my fiancee. We were going to get married after the war.” Gruff Steve frowned impossibly even more. “Bucky married her — Gail. That’s what happened while I was frozen,” he said with unfathomable bitterness. “They have a house and grandkids.”

Steve nodded in understanding. But he was on edge from the other Steve’s bitterness and anger. “My Bucky was found by HYDRA after surviving the rocket explosion. He was a brainwashed assassin with a mechanical arm working for HYDRA. Bucky’s his own man now, but he’s not talking to me either.”

The other Steve lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing and drank his coffee. 

“I need to get home,” Steve said. “I’m not a threat.”

“I already figured that out,” Gruff Steve said. He pulled two power bars out of his utility belt and pushed them over to Steve, like a peace offering. “Kitchen’s closed and you’re hungry.”

“Thanks,” Steve said gratefully as he unwrapped the first bar.

“It doesn’t bother you, being stuck in the future?” Gruff Steve asked. 

“Sometimes. Not as often as it did before — I have a team now —” Steve caught a flash of annoyance and anger in the other Steve’s eyes. 

“They promised us flying cars and trips to the moon. But the future wasn’t what we were told it would be. I come back and fight aliens that have been here since the war. It never ends, and all that’s ever been good in the world disappears more every day. Let me tell you everything that’s gone wrong —”

As Steve listened to Gruff Steve list out his grievances, it occurred to him that he could have been the same as Gruff Steve if he had had the same losses and griefs. He had seen a number of Steves, but the crushing weight of responsibility, guilt, loss, and being Cap got them all in the end. Here was yet another Steve going through the motions. Steve figured that Gruff Steve was lashing out at the world for all the same reasons he had when he woke up and first worked for SHIELD. Gruff Steve was just angrier than the other Steves in the multiverse. 

Worse, this Steve believed he had nothing — he stayed in the Triskelion, lived and breathed for training and working out and missions, nothing else. He barely needed sleep, and the world he lived in had suffered unbelievable damage. He would be better off if he was with his own Tony.

Tony loved the future and had opened up the whole world to Steve, who been trapped like a performing bear in a cage working for SHIELD. And Tony still loved showing things to Steve, from movies to cars, to new restaurants, to the latest discoveries, all the wonderful things that the future held. Did no one care about Gruff Steve?

“Do you know anything about the multiverse?” Steve asked, hoping to derail Gruff Steve from his tirade about hipsters and streaming radio.

A cough and the slight sound of someone sliding across leather caught his attention. Steve looked over at the source of the sound. A dark-haired man in a booth at the opposite end of the large room waved jauntily at him and lifted a glass as if toasting him. 

“Who’s that in the back?” Steve asked. 

Gruff Steve sighed wearily. “Tony Stark. He wants to meet you.”

Steve smiled. “That can’t be bad —”

“You have no idea.”

“I have a Tony.”

“Oh, then you do know.” Steve waved the man over. “Warning, he’s one of the smartest men in the world, but has the filthiest mind of anyone I know,” he said in a low conspiratorial voice to Steve. “Is your Tony like that?”

“Close enough.” Steve glanced up at the other Tony in a three-piece suit approaching them. This he could work with. “Was he involved with the portal project your scientists are working on?”

“Yes. He gets involved with everything.” Gruff Steve turned towards Tony, who smiled even brighter at him. “Even when he’s been told to stay away.”

“Sounds like a Tony Stark.” 

Steve had questions. But he had a job at hand: first, to get back home; and secondly, find his own Tony and bring him back. “Then he could help with the portal.”

“How can I stay away when your clone is in town visiting?” Tony said, with an appraising eye aimed at Steve. 

Sighing, Gruff Steve shot Steve a look. “Someone should have news about that portal.” He got up from the table.

“I adore interdimensional portals — we haven’t been too successful at getting any of ours to work,” Tony explained as they headed back to the lab. Tony was all jazzed up about playing around with multi-dimensional portals.

“We don’t either,” Steve asked. He swerved a few inches away from Tony, who seemed to have as many hands as an octopus has tentacles. 

“Do you remember what Natasha Stark did?” Handsy Tony was also tickled pink that he had a female version out there.

“Not sure — she said she didn’t know which universe I was from. She triangulated some possible destinations and choose the best option. She mentioned her Reed Richards had knowledge about the multiverse.”

Gruff Steve and Handsy Tony exchanged a grim look. Tony even gave a full body shudder. “That’s not a good idea,” Gruff Steve said as he gripped Tony’s shoulder.

Steve had picked up through other hints that the people who were his friends and allies in his world had counterparts that were far different here or had different fates. Besides the Reed mystery, he’d learned not to mention Black Widow, Hank Pym, Hulk or Peter Parker. Maybe Gruff Steve had some very good reasons to despise his world.

Once at the lab, Tony cracked his knuckles, reminding Steve of his own Tony lost out there. The lab techs and SHIELD agents stepped back from the computer to make way for Tony. He grinned as he tapped furiously at a computer. “Huh, I see a way to open that portal again.”

Tony whooped as the portal gate buzzed awake. “This calls for champagne, the good stuff you can hardly get these days.” He gave a dazzling smile to Steve. “What does your Tony drink?”

Steve thought for a moment. “He has strong opinions on guacamole dip.”

The other Tony shrugged. “I have no idea what I would talk about with your Tony. I fear I’d be disappointed.”

“He’s going to be at that for a while,” Gruff Steve explained, steering Steve away from the computers. 

Tense and watchful, Steve sat in his corner waiting to see if Tony figured out the portal. Gruff Steve remained a couple of paces way, standing at parade rest until Fury summoned him to a meeting outside in a corridor. Tony poked his head up over the computer bank with a worried look on his face. Steve’s sensitive hearing could pick up the unmistakable argument between Fury and Gruff Steve. He had no idea what they were talking about, but Gruff Steve was getting enraged quite quickly.

Gruff Steve stormed back into the lab, sending the SHIELD agents scattering and fleeing. Tony looked speculatively at him. “Darling, it looks like you are in a mood.”

“Get the Cap over there back home soon as you can,” Gruff Steve said, jabbing his thumb in Steve’s direction. “I’ll be back in a hour or when the portal’s ready.” He pointed furiously at the SHIELD agents. “You, you and you. Come with me. Now.”

Whatever had gone down between Fury and Gruff Steve cast a pall over the room, despite Tony’s constant charm offensive of chatter and bad jokes. He did something indecipherable and the lab techs swarmed over all the equipment. 

Tony came over. “Don’t worry about him,” he told Steve with a flirty grin. “Cap always gets like this after a bad fight. I’ll take him out to one of the best restaurants in town tonight and let him complain, and then he’ll take me on a walk somewhere and we’ll end up, well. You look too young to be thinking or doing those sorts of things. Nice to see someone else care about him.”

Gruff Steve hadn’t come back yet. “You and him?” Steve asked, confused.

“I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But maybe something like that. He’s one of the best out there — for one thing, he helped me through the chemo. Don’t tell anybody — it doesn’t fit with the whole terribly stoic ‘man’s man’ thing he has going on.” Tony winked at him. 

A lab tech waved excitedly at him. “Ah, we’re ready to send you back. I have to find Steve or he won’t be happy. He’ll want to be on hand for this.”

Regardless of knowing Steve and what he wanted, Gruff Steve wasn’t going to be happy until he saw for himself that Steve was gone and no longer posed any sort of threat. Steve could understand that. Sound policy, really. But it didn’t give him the warm fuzzies toward Gruff Steve.

As Steve stepped up to the newly energized portal, the other Steve handed him his shield. “You’ll need this.”

“Thanks for the help.”

“Go, find your friends. And your Tony,” Gruff Steve said. 

Steve looked over at Tony, totally engrossed in the computer screens. He shot an inquisitive look at Gruff Steve. Who gave him a sly grin that told Steve all he ever needed to know. Well, that was a big surprise after all.


	14. Tony

Oh, great, what now? Tony thought as the portal dumped him in a nondescript storage area. He could be anywhere, anywhen and any universe considering the ubiquitous gray walls, fluorescent lights and shelving. Maybe not medieval times, although at the rate he was going, he probably would find the one universe where they had electricity, computers, knights and castles. 

The dial on the tool told him he was in Earth-TRN607. Whatever that meant.

He wished he had access to FRIDAY. The suit could run some basic diagnostics and analysis, but it had its limitations. Here goes nothing. He opened the door and stepped into a wide, gray, low-lit corridor. The suit could pick up the sound of thrumming engines. Sounded like helicarrier engines.

“Welcome, sir,” JARVIS said. “Is that a new suit you are trying out?”

Tony nearly jumped out of his suit. Good ol’ JARVIS. How he missed that AI. “Yeah. Of course. Uh, where are we now?”

“Cruising at altitude above the North Atlantic.”

“Where’s Cap?” he asked, testing the waters further.

“He’s on his way to meet you in the cafeteria for dinner. Sir, I suggest that you run a diagnostic on the communication systems. I am having difficulty connecting to the armor.”

“Thank you, JARVIS. I’ll do that.”

Tony took off the helmet and wished again he had spent the five seconds needed to rig up a carrying system for the helmet. So there was a Steve in this universe. And everything felt familiar enough to be his home universe, considering the suit could connect to JARVIS. But there was that unexpected problem connecting with the communications systems that tipped the evidence back to not being home.

A couple of quick fixes later, and the suit could tie into the ship’s systems. Now he could find his way to the cafeteria. He’d have to be careful. No telling who was here. The suit told him that he was on an experimental ship designed for SHIELD’s use as a smaller, less bulky alternative to the helicarrier. Apparently he had taken the ship out for a shakedown cruise and invited Steve along for the ride. No one else from the team had tagged along.

God, was he that predictable in every universe?

He clutched the portal tool in his hand. Maybe he should duck into a workshop and reverse engineer this thing into his suit. Not everyone had the ability to conjure pockets like Reed. If he built this ship, he would definitely have built a lab. And he would put the lab right — there. With a spectacular view of the skies as they flew. Before he could sneak in, he saw Alternative Steve heading towards the cafeteria, just like JARVIS told him.

This Steve looked a lot like his Steve, only a touch beefier and with a worse haircut. Tony’s heart ached to be so close and yet so far. He was tempted to join Steve for dinner. Just to hear his voice. Talk about everyday things, pretend that he was home. He would be willing to listen to Steve rant on about the Mets for hours if that meant he and Steve were in the same space.

Unthinkingly, he took a couple of steps towards the oblivious Steve. But he stopped in his tracks when he heard his own voice greeting Steve, “About that last bet, Steve, let’s double down.” Alternative Tony sounded happy, teasing even, when he joked with his Alternative Steve. “If you win, I have a reward that you won’t believe.”

Alternative Steve laughed. “Sure about that, Stark? Last time you lost a bet, your stamina gave out before you delivered.”

Tony’s ears went a touch pink thinking of what they could be talking about. 

Fine. They were out of the way and he could solve the engineering problem of the day. Reed could get over-fancy in his designs. But Tony was the gifted applied engineer. 

The lab was outfitted exactly the way he would have done it at home. He could kiss Alternative Tony right now. Tony could work on the tool, then tackle any remaining problems with the suit. He booted up a computer and got down to work. Within minutes, he was so deeply involved in working out the tool’s functions, he didn’t notice that the tool was blinking on and off. The blinking was supposed to alert him whenever a portal was nearby.

There was an anomaly in the air about 4 feet away from the workbench. The air shifted and sparkled and solidified into a portal. He scrabbled to grab a gauntlet. Anything could be coming through that portal.

Anything Steve-shaped, that was. 

“Steve?” Was that his Steve? Could that even be possible?

“Tony!” a Steve shouted as he stepped out of the portal. He tore off his helmet and made a beeline to Tony at the workbench.

“Your favorite ice cream is butter pecan,” Tony blurted out. “You listen to both NPR and old-time radio programs while you draw. You think my tech is the tops.”

“Um, yes.” Steve stopped a foot away, confused at first, then wary. “Wait — this doesn’t feel like my universe.” He lifted the shield. “You might not be —”

“For one thing, I’m a de-Ultronified Tony. And I’m the guy who went undercover with you to infiltrate the Cabal. Ask me anything that you think only I would know.”

Steve frowned. “We — the team and I — were talking over the radio a few hours ago. You said you could build a portal to return home. Sam and you were talking, a portal appeared in the lab, and now I’m here, give or take a few portal hops.”

“Whew,” Tony replied. He ran over to Steve and threw his arms around him. Burying his head in Steve’s neck, he breathed Steve in and clung to him as if his life depended on it. Probably did, actually.

Steve hugged him. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again —”

“What? The phone calls weren’t good enough for you?” Tony said. He looked up at Steve, the tears in his beautiful blue eyes and the best smile in the universe. 

They kissed desperately, eager to prove how much they missed each other and to relearn all their connections. Steve gently cupped the back of Tony’s head and ran a comforting hand up and down Tony’s back. 

“Never again,” he said, as he kissed Tony’s forehead again and again. 

Tony’s throat tightened up with choking back tears. “I don’t know how much time we have until —”

Steve sprang back. “Right. What are we dealing with?”

“Multiverse —”

“Oh, that. I’ve been filled in already. But what universe is this?”

“Earth-TRN607. I have a doohickey that tells me the universe.” Tony pointed to the tool on the workbench. “I’m in the process of programming it into the suit.”

“Okay. And we can get back home that way?”

“Sure! That’s the plan.”

Steve looked around at the lab. “Anything else I should know?”

“Yeah, we’re on a modified flying ship and our counterparts are having lunch together in the cafeteria. So if you were thinking about anything other than food, it’s easy to avoid them.”

“How much time do you need?”

Tony sighed. “Not sure. Maybe a half-hour — Reed makes things overly complicated.” 

“I’ll be back with food and coffee if I can sneak past the other Steve and Tony.”

“You’ll be a god of the universe if you get coffee. The coffee station in here isn’t stocked yet.”

Tony turned to the last steps of getting the tool programmed into his suit. After several minutes, he wondered where Steve had gone to. After a few more minutes, he started to actively worry whether Steve had disappeared. He couldn’t focus on the suit repairs and kept looking up at the door.

Finally, the door slid open and Steve dashed into the lab. “Tony, we’ve got big problems.”

“What happened?”

“Kang.” 

“Where did he come from? Are you sure?”

Steve nodded grimly. “I was heading to the kitchen and I saw him gliding down a corridor out of a portal.”

“Are we okay? I mean, the Steve and Tony of this universe —”

“I don’t know. I followed Kang carefully. He was looking for something. I think he’s looking for us. Before I landed here, the Steve and Natasha — a female version of you — told me that they had fought a Kang who had come through a portal. They noticed energy signatures on me and the portal I came through similar to the ones from their Kang.”

“Oh, that could explain things. The Reed who gave me this tool told me something had gone wrong with the portal, something about energy just as I jumped into the portal that brought me here. I couldn’t hear what he said.”

Steve rubbed his chin and look thoughtfully at the floor. “Do you think Kang could be behind this all?”

“Maybe — who knows why the hell he does what he does.”

“You should get in the suit.”

“I’m on it, Cap.” Tony set a speed record for getting back into the armor, just in time for them to both hear scratching at the door. 

“Kang,” Steve whispered.

“Kang,” Tony agreed, as he trained a repulsor on the door. They stood next to each other taking deep breaths and bracing for the coming attack.

Instead of opening the door, Kang appeared in a portal in the lab. “Yes, the Steve Rogers and Tony Stark I’ve been looking for. Time to finally eradicate you.” He aimed a gun at them.

Steve ran towards Kang, swinging the shield and nearly knocking the guy off his floating throne. Kang coolly righted his throne and backed into the portal. Steve ran after him. Tony grabbed one of Steve’s hands and was sucked into the portal behind Steve.


	15. Tony and Steve

They were unceremoniously dumped out of the portal into what appeared to be post-apocalyptic New York. “Where are we?” Steve asked.

Tony pointed up to black and green banners and a tower bathed in red and gold light soaring above the dark streets. “Thor told me about this. Doom, time machine, world domination. Avengers save the day and the big ol’ reset button gets punched.”

Steve hefted the shield and narrowed his eyes. “I would never have —”

“You were frozen in a ice block as the main decoration of Doom’s throne room, according to Thor.” Tony ran a search for Kang. “We need to find Kang. He probably thought we’d get distracted here.”

“Distracted?” Steve asked as he looked speculatively at the cameras lining the street.

Tony poked Steve. “Like you’re doing now. I bet you that this very second you’re planning to wreck Doom’s surveillance machines.”

Snapping the shield back on his shoulder harness, Steve gave Tony a guilty look. “But we can’t —”

“Trust me. Bruce, Nat and I are plotting to overthrow Doom as we speak. Spoiler alert — we win. You get defrosted and take out Doom. It’s fine.” Tony glanced around the streets. He grabbed Steve’s arm. “There — Kang!”

They ran after Kang and followed him into a portal.

~~~~~

“I like the ears,” Steve said. 

Tony flexed the armored mouse ears now sprouting from his head. And waved his armored tail. “I’m a mouse.”

“Iron Mouse.”

He groaned at the name. Of course he’d be Iron Mouse, now that he was a mouse. Golden-patched tabby Steve flicked his tail playfully at Tony and grinned. “Thank you, Captain Obvious. No — Captain Americat.”

This time, they were now on a bustling daylit city street. Still New York, according to the Daily Beagle that Steve borrowed from a passerby. “Apparently I’m a reporter here,” said Steve with a frown. 

“Steven Mouser?” Tony laughed. “Nice to see that I’m still Tony Stark here.”

“Yeah, well, Spider-Ham stopped Mooseterio from breaking into Stark Industries last night.” Steve showed Tony the headlines.

“We have to find Kang before I die from the puns. Or my brain overheats from trying to figure out how this world even functions.” 

“You named one of your suits the Rubber Ducky armor. You can’t be complaining about puns.”

“Fine.” Tony took the paper from Steve and flipped through the pages. “Nice to know that Iron Mouse and Captain Americat are the leaders of the Scavengers. In every universe --”

Steve did his usual routine of scanning the city streets for Kang. “He has to be around here somewhere.” He stepped towards an alleyway.

“Uh, Steve?”

“What?” 

“I found Kang. He’s coming out of that jewelry store.”

Steve reached for his shield. “How can you tell?”

“I’m so certain it’s Kang that I’d bet you a year’s worth of breakfast in bed, loser makes and serves.” He pointed to the kangaroo climbing onto a floating throne.

Steve ran after Kang, who opened another portal. Tony was heartily sick of portals by now. All he hoped was that they could get their hands on Kang and end this.

~~~~~

Tony flew through the air, firing repulsors to keep up the pressure on Kang. He glanced over at Steve, who managed to tag a ride by holding onto Tony. Except that Steve now seemed to be a large, roundish oval shape with big blue eyes and flippers for hands and feet. 

Oval Steve had the most determined look on his face, which made him even more ridiculously cute. Tony might have enjoyed it more, except he was beyond annoyed with the distinct lack of hands or legs and the clumsy feel of his own ovoid body.

Tony said: ლ(ಥ Д ಥ )ლ

Steve: ノಠ_ಠノ

Tony: ಠ_ಠ (ಥ﹏ಥ)

Steve swung his shield around. Steve: (ง’̀-‘́)ง 

Tony: ╏つ ͜ಠ ‸ ͜ಠ ╏つ 

Steve: ┻━┻ ︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻ 

Tony: ¯_( ͠° ͟ʖ °͠ )_/¯ 

Steve: (ง’̀-‘́)ง (ง’̀-‘́)ง (ง’̀-‘́)ง

Tony: (◔ д◔) 

Steve’s plans were pretty direct and violent for all his cuteness as a small oval flying thing, Tony thought. Might get them killed in this form.

Tony: ┌( ಠ_ಠ)┘

Tony was more than grateful when they slammed into a hesitating Kang, pushing him into another universe. The next universe had to be an improvement.

~~~~~

“Where the hell are we now?” Tony swore as they rolled out of the portal. They had landed in the middle of what looked like a college campus filled with young versions of their superhero friends.

“I have no idea. Why isn’t anyone attacking that HYDRA airship up there?” Steve asked, pointing to the offending object hovering about them. “And what’s going on with the AIM soldiers and alien symbiotes walking around?”

Tony was more bothered by something else he noticed. “Wait — why are we hanging out in that club over there? You’re dancing and I’m throwing money in the air.” Like they were at the kindergarten version of a strip club.

“Dancing! With a HYDRA airship and alien invaders on campus. That sounds just like me.”

“Every universe is different.” Tony checked the portal tool. “Kang is here. Somewhere.”

“Okay.” Steve scanned their surroundings. “He’s probably hiding.”

Tony snorted. “What were you doing when you were eighteen?”

“Getting angry about Hitler. How about you? Wait, did that building just move?”

“I’m not sure, maybe — it looks like it moved a couple of feet to the west.”

“Can I help you, sir?” the young version of Steve asked.

Tony put a hand over Steve’s mouth before Steve could say anything. “We’re looking for Kang —”

Steve tugged Tony’s hand off his face. “Why aren’t you fighting HYDRA?” Steve sputtered.

“I don’t know. They won’t let me,” the young Cap said sadly. “Tony, why aren’t we fighting HYDRA?”

Young Tony, who was wearing a single gauntlet and in a business suit a touch too big for his slight frame, shrugged. “I guess that’s what the new crew is doing this week.”

“That shouldn’t hold you back,” Steve scolded them.

Young Steve looked downcast. Business suit Tony glared at Steve. “Lay off, man. Are you the mean version of Captain America?”

“Everyone, stop,” Tony snapped. “Are you used to multiverse visitors here?”

“Yeah, every week someone shows up from somewhere else,” young Tony and Cap explained together.

“Great. We’re looking for Kang.”

“Um, I last saw him over there on a floating throne thing —” Business suit Tony pointed towards the edge of campus.

“I’m not fighting the invaders this week, but I do get to punch tanks,” young Cap said, brightening up. “As many as I want.”

Steve softened at the kid’s enthusiasm and smiled back. He thumped the kid’s back. “I love punching tanks, too. But I don’t let the rules stop me when it comes to HYDRA.”

Young Cap and Steve exchanged a look and a grin. “Yeah,” young Cap agreed.

Business suit Tony whispered to Tony, “That can’t be good.” He glanced nervously at his Steve, who was now obviously plotting something big and radical.

“Not for you it can’t.” Tony tapped his Steve’s arm. “Come on, Steve — we’ve got to get Kang.”

Young Cap nudged Business suit Tony. “Come on — we’ve got some fighting to do.”

As they chased down Kang, Tony looked back to see young Cap and Iron Man rounding up their friends to attack the airship. Guess that was to be expected, he thought, as they plunged into a portal after Kang.

~~~~~

They interrupted the next set of Steve and Tonys while they were on a date playing basketball. Exhausted from chasing Kang through portals all over the multiverse, Tony grunted at them, “Multiverse. Kang. Stop him.”

Blue-eyed Tony shared a look with his Steve, who was already heading over to a bench to put on jeans and a shirt. “Okay. We’re on it,” he replied. “We’ve tangled with Kang before.”

Tony was grateful for the brief respite as Blue-eyed Tony took them to their Tower. “Bruce will have an idea what to do. And if worse comes to worse, we can call on Reed. But I bet Bruce and I can track down Kang for you first,” the other Tony explained.

This Tony and Steve were good people, Tony decided, as he helped Bruce and Blue-eyed Tony scan for Kang. Although he didn’t quite understand the number of cats around the Tower and workshop. But he wasn’t going to complain about the little purring black one who had claimed his lap. 

Kang roared into the room. “Enough!” he bellowed. “I have had enough of the both of you.” 

He grabbed and shook his Steve as Steve tried in vain to land a punch on the conqueror. “I banish you to oblivion,” he snarled as he tossed Steve like a rag doll through a new portal. 

Tony activated his own portal and ran for it before he could be grabbed by Kang. Better to get ahead of the curve before he ended up wherever Kang planned to send him. Then he could find Steve.


	16. Steve

Steve didn’t need the convertible. But then, he couldn’t take Peggy for a spin on the motorcycle either. They were getting a bit too old for that. He kept the car at a SHIELD garage in the city, bringing it out on beautiful days like this one where they went for long drives out of the city. Today they were heading out to a small town dubbed Pleasant Hill where they were going to look for houses.

He watched Peggy pin a filmy blue scarf around her blonde hair done up in a French twist. “Howard is being ridiculous, you know,” she declared as she gathered up her purse and the magazine with the house information.

“Oh?” he replied, as he locked the apartment and followed her down to the car. He was secretly glad that Peggy had decided on wearing her wide-legged trousers. She had always looked her best in pants of any sort. She had sunglasses on, ready to be mistaken for a movie star.

Peggy already had the map out on her lap, ready to navigate out of the city and into Connecticut, just like her days with the French Resistance. These days they had to deal with road construction and lack of gas stations instead of Hydra bombs and soldiers. “We had lunch the other day,” Peggy said. “While you were out on that SHIELD mission.”

“What did he have to say?”

“It was Howard.” As if that and the shrug explained everything. “I think he was asking me if I wanted to sign up with SHIELD. He didn’t say that exactly but he’s never as subtle as he thinks he’s being.”

Steve nodded. Peggy had been getting bored out of her mind lately after giving up on the charity and ladies-who-lunch scenes. They were thinking of getting out of the city and trying something different. Maybe even trying for a family. 

Peggy continued, “I asked him if SHIELD was expecting a government overthrow and needed agents who could run resistance cells. Because god knows, I have experience with that. No — they’re looking for spies now.”

“Would you like to do that?”

“Spying means traveling and if I’ve finally got you talking about retiring from being Captain America, then why would I take that sort of job?”

“We’re not just talking about it anymore. I told Fury the other day that it’s time for me to hang up the shield.”

“Really, Steve? You actually did that?”

Steve said, “It’s time. The War is behind us and it’s time for someone else to do the job. Fury’s already got ideas about replacements to fill the costume.” He understood World War II but not Korea. And he didn’t like what he was already hearing about Vietnam. He and Fury were arguing far too often about current politics to remain friends for much longer. 

Peggy and he owed a lot to SHIELD. One of Fury’s people had found Peggy in that French hospital suffering from a concussion right after D-Day. If it hadn’t been for him, Steve could have lost her forever. Then Bucky had told him to stay in Paris with her when they got orders to report to England to guard an experimental airplane. Bucky’s loss still stung after all these years. Steve would rather swap stories over beer with Fury than stay working when he was losing faith in SHIELD’s future direction. Not Fury’s fault that the world was changing. But Steve didn’t have to go along with him.

Peggy was waving her hand in the air with a smile on her face. “Then I’ll turn Howard down.”

“But if you want to work —”

“I wanted to see the world free, just like you. We’ve done our part. Sharon’s thrilled to working with SHIELD now. Better her than me.” 

“We could go back to Virginia —”

“Not on a bet, soldier. I went to Paris for more reasons than fighting Nazis. As long as we can easily get to an airport or train station, I’m fine with Connecticut.”

They arrived at the small, tidy town of Pleasant Hill. Nice town, but Steve could walk from one end to the other in half a day. The house they were looking at was in a new development on the edge of town. He parked the convertible in front of the model house, a Cape Cod style with mullioned windows and a brass door knocker and neatly trimmed hedges. Peggy smiled as she got of the car. He felt a wave of disappointment. 

Peggy gripped his hand. “Come on, it’s not that bad. It’s just a house.”

Not what he wanted. As he walked up the flagstone path, he felt he was going to a prison. He still had no idea what he was going to do when he retired from being Captain America. They had money — a gift from Peggy’s parents, their pensions from service, Steve’s savings. But what would he do with himself here? Nearly all the Howlies had found their way to small houses like this with young families and commuted to work. Steve just never had a plan for what would come after the end of war. 

Peggy was talking about rose gardens and hedges and barbecue parties. She linked her arm in his. “Three bedrooms, too. Right size for a family.”

He could take back his resignation — go on special assignments instead. Peggy might not mind that much, especially if he was home for the weekends. Or if he gave her a family of her own.

He looked around the street, nearly empty except for some workers milling around a half-built house. The real estate agent was waiting for them on the doorstep. That’s when the contemporary house with plate-glass windows and a sloped roof and carport at the end of the street caught his eye. Steve liked the lines of the house. 

“What about that place?” he asked pointing.

“A house to drive the neighbors crazy — just what I wanted,” Peggy replied.

He couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. “Meet me over there.”

She sighed in fond exasperation. “Okay. I’ll get the realtor.”

He walked down the street lined with well-trimmed grass lawns and newly planted saplings. A landscape more alien to Steve than the war torn lands of Europe or the neon-lit streets of cities or HYDRA bases. He found the front door of the house was unlocked. He stepped through the opening and was blinded by a bright light.

“You are the most aggravating man,” Kang said in greeting.

Dressed in his uniform with his shield on his arm, Steve stood in a room with white walls, floor and ceiling, except for one wall that was completely glass. 

An annoyed Kang sat in his hovering chrono-throne on the other side. “Why won’t you stay where you can be happy?”


	17. Tony

“Explain the multiverse again,” the other Tony prompted.

Tony was sitting comfortably in the middle of a 19th century Iron Man armory, complete with a coffee-brewing contraption. The other Tony with a magnificent mustache offered him another cup. 

“Coffee came from San Francisco,” he said, like he was offering Tony a rare delicacy. Probably was, considering how far away Timely was from civilization. But still, Steampunk Stark had managed to put together a rather efficient and well-stocked workshop despite the disadvantages of being stuck in Nowheresville. They’d already spent the morning talking about Iron Man armor.

He held up his portal tool and aimed it at a wall to open a portal. “If I go through that portal, I’ll step into another world. It could be like this one or like my home or anything really. There are dozens of versions of us. Some blue-eyed, some brown, most are wealthy, nearly everyone ends up as Iron Man.” 

They both looked at the armor. “Is that so?” Steampunk asked.

“More or less. There are of course a lot of differences and changes and all that in the multiverses. Weird stuff sometimes. I’m trying to get home —”

“Do you have your own Sheriff Rogers? Is he in good health? Thriving?” Steampunk continued, his voice breaking as he spoke. He gave Tony a small, twisted smile.

“Steve?” Suddenly, Tony had a brief memory of being here before and walking a day in Steampunk’s shoes. Oh. He could see the signs of profound loss in Steampunk’s face. An unending grief patched over for politeness’ sake, to be let out in the silence of rooms late at night, hidden so that no one would be made uncomfortable in company. But now his life’s constant companion.

“You should have such a man as Sheriff Rogers in your own life.” Steampunk waved a hand at the workshop. “I would not be here save for him. I gave up drink and found my salvation in building and creating to save other people, to make a true, lasting difference in the world to make up for my failures.”

“That seems to be a common theme to Tony Starks of all universes.”

“But do we all have a Steven Rogers to inspire us to keep on the good path? Do you, Mr. Stark?”

“I’m trying to get home to my Steve,” Tony replied. He smiled at Steampunk, trying to be kind about his missing Steve. 

But Steampunk was as smart as he was and picked up what Tony had put down. “Oh. I had not hoped — well.” He dropped his voice, in case of eavesdroppers, although Tony couldn’t see anyone. “I’ll never love like that again. But I am glad that you have found the happiness I could not have here,” Steampunk whispered.

Tony felt like he had been kicked in the stomach and had to fight off a sudden wave of guilt that he could have everything that this Tony could not have. He drank his coffee. 

“I should be going,” he said finally, as he hit the trigger on the portal tool.


	18. Steve

“You are an infuriating man, Captain,” Kang said. 

Steve took a quick look around his cell. It was futuristic; with smooth, seamless glass walls, tiled floor, and ambient lights embedded in the ceiling. He was more bothered by the lack of a door than the aesthetics. 

“Let me go, Kang.”

Kang sighed. “And tedious. Like every version of you in every universe. Even when you are skinny, without the serum. Please take a seat. You aren’t going anywhere soon.”

He rejected the beanbag chair and opted to sit on the edge of the provided cot. He carefully set down the shield within grabbing distance. “What do you want?”

Kang steepled his fingers. “What any intelligent conqueror wants — peace and control. You and your friends manage to occupy a large section of the time stream and universes that I and the other Kangs should have conquered years ago. Fortunately for me, I have recently come into possession of an ancient artifact — a complete cosmic cube, a rarity in my time.”

“Cosmic cube?”

“Hmm, it’s a powerful artifact, like your Infinity Stones. You haven’t encountered one in your universe yet — you might mistake it for the Tesseract, a quaint name given to a structure housing an Infinity Stone. A cosmic cube in the hands of a person who can wield it can alter reality itself or create a series of different realities.” Kang lowered his chrono-throne. “Honestly, you and your other versions have a terrible habit of not staying defeated or dead.”

“That’s not terrible.”

Kang waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, a feature, not a bug, as the ancient saying goes. I have tired of fighting you and Stark, but I am not an evil man and do not wish you dead. I am merely altering the realities so that you and Stark do not become or remain superheroes.”

“Why not leave me in the ice?”

“I have tried that and tried altering Stark’s life so he doesn’t become Iron Man. Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Other Kangs say it’s doable. But it’s not.”

Steve was actually finding this supervillain monologue interesting. He’d prefer a more comfortable chair and the cell being less warm. Otherwise, this was fascinating and he didn’t have a clue where this was going. 

“It’s not?”

“I have found the solution — stopping you and Stark from ever meeting or knowing about each other. Relegate you to the dust of history — to live out your life in post-war malaise and fade into a footnote of history for others to wonder whatever became of Captain America. And for Stark — let him burn himself out as a tech giant and die in ignominy. I need his tech for my world, but not his legacy as a hero. That is my solution for you and Stark undermining my rule.”

“And yet I am here.”

“You are proving to be difficult, Steve Rogers of universe Earth-12041. Stark and your travels through the multiverse have upset all my plans, months of careful work by hundreds of my subjects. And you need to account for that.”

“What you going to do with me?”

Kang shrugged. “You are not my worry right now. Once I have Stark, then you will find out.”


	19. Tony

Moon Governor Tony was a very busy man with all the governing of the moon he had to do. But he had kindly lent Tony an office, computers and all the server power he needed for as long as he choose to stay. But Governor Tony couldn’t do much more than that. He had his own problems upon problems, like all Tony Starks had.

Tony appreciated the office with its lovely view of the moonscape and the stunning black sky studded with thousands of stars. A robot had brought him lunch and coffee as he pondered his next move. 

His portal trips since meeting his Steve a few universes back weren’t bringing him at all closer to his Steve. But he had collected evidence that someone or something had been interfering with his portal travel. Maybe deliberately putting him off course. 

The coffee was excellent and filled him with a satisfying warmth as he paced in front of the window. He paused enough to notice the rather spectacular photo of this universe’s Steve Rogers on the desk. Beautiful smile, beautiful landscape. A vacation photo, with the Governor the likely photographer. It was rare to see Steve so happy.

“AI, where is Steve Rogers?”

“Captain Rogers is currently traveling on Avengers’ business. He is expected for a visit this weekend.”

Right. A private weekend getaway for the Governor and his Steve. Just like every other universe Tony had landed in. Except for Steampunk, who had lost his Steve. But even though Steampunk had lost his Steve, he kept the memory, inspiration and love alive.

He halted his pacing. Someone or something was stopping him from returning home because he was on a mission. Steampunk had hit the nail right on the head. In every universe there should be a Tony for a Steve, a Steve for a Tony. And he couldn’t go home to his Steve because there was a universe out there where a Tony and a Steve had not met up.

So, if he found that universe and got that Tony and Steve together, he’d finish the mission and the path home would be opened up. But how could he find that one universe?

The AI pulled up a classified database that this universe’s Reed Richards had compiled on multiverses. Apparently he had been the chair of the Council of Reeds for a couple of terms. Tony didn’t really want to know the details. Reed had the same insufferable habits everywhere.

“Mr. Stark, it appears that the universe designated Earth-904913 has the parameters you are looking for. I have coordinates.”

Tony input the coordinates in the portal tool and poured coffee into a traveling mug. The tool also had a handy person locator so he input Tony Stark in as well. “Tell Governor Stark that I am very grateful for his help. I have to go now.”

He opened the portal to Earth-904913. He had to be right. And he could sense that long tropical vacation with Steve just around the corner. 

How hard could this be?

~~~~~

On the other side of the portal was an apartment living room. Disoriented, Tony tapped on his gauntlet to find out where he was. Reed’s portal tool said that he had arrived as he had planned on Earth-904913. The armor’s GPS said he was in Allston, Massachusetts. 

A quick glance around the room reminded Tony of his student days at MIT. He wondered about the Tony he was inevitably going to meet, because if this Tony was at MIT, he was too young for Tony’s plan. This Tony wasn’t even close to getting the arc reactor, much less finding his Steve in the ice. 

“Find me another Earth,” Tony said wearily.

“What the hell?” a young Tony said. He was holding a slice of pizza in one hand and a pizza box in the other. 

Tony ran through his Tony checklist. This Tony had blue eyes and dark hair, which indicated the branch universes of blue-eyed Tonys. Which likely meant that this Tony was in for a very hard time of it. All blue-eyed Tonys had it rough. And the Tony was young too, with stubble on his chin and a ratty MIT t-shirt and dark circles under his eyes. The young Tony hadn’t met his Rhodey or Pepper or Happy yet either. He needed to get out of this gracefully.

“Long night in the workshop?” Tony asked.

“Yeah,” Young Tony replied. His eyes darted around the room looking for a weapon. 

Tony held up his hands and traveling mug. “I, um, come in peace.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” the other Tony muttered. He put down his pizza. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. “Look, I’ve dealt already with my grandson who came from the future to kill me, so if you’re here for that, I’m not up to it today. I have three exams today and tomorrow and a 20-page economics paper due Monday.” He smiled grimly. “Or maybe kill me now — I haven’t even started the research for that paper.”

“Can I sit down?” Tony asked. He took off the helmet and set it down. He removed the rest of the armor, happy to be free from the suit for a little bit of time. Plus, this way he wouldn’t scare Young Tony.

“You can’t be me — you have brown eyes and darker hair and are a lot older. And you have an arc-reactor in your chest.”

Tony rolled his eyes. The age difference wasn’t much more than ten years, although Young Tony was implying he was ready for the nursing home. “I am Tony Stark and Iron Man. The multiverse is a strange place.”

“One of my professors, Reed Richards, talks about the possibilities of a multiverse all the time,” Young Tony said. “I thought he was being way too theoretical and thinky.”

“Okay. You say you met your time-traveling grandson and you doubt the existence of a multiverse?” Strange that a lot of Tonys in universes with a Reed Richards were skeptical of anything that Richards said. He didn’t know his Richards well enough to have an opinion.

Young Tony shrugged. “I just never met another version of me.”

Tony continued, “Like I said, I’m you, but in a few years. Something bad will happen and you’ll build this suit and —”

“I’ve done that already,” Young Tony said exasperatedly. “I built my first suit of armor when I was fifteen.”

“What?”

“I built the first armor to show my dad. But there was a plane accident and he was kidnapped by the Mandarin and I ended up with an arc-reactor powered implant in my chest.”

“Like this one?” Tony lifted his t-shirt.

Young Tony peered carefully at his chest. He pointed at the reactor. “Is that seriously embedded deep in your chest? How do you breathe?”

“I manage. It’s an electromagnet — keeps shrapnel from my heart.”

“Huh. Mine worked more like a pacemaker,” Young Tony said. “Then I took Extremis, which repaired my heart, and I don’t need it any more. Maybe you could try it?”

“Extremis doesn’t exist in my universe. So, Iron Man?”

“Yeah. Obadiah Stane took over Stark International after my dad disappeared — I became Iron Man around that time. I was Iron Man pretty much through high school and the first year of college.”

“I already graduated from MIT when I was nineteen.”

“Dad wanted me to experience high school.”

Tony bit his lip. This wasn’t anything he expected, and even though it was exciting to swap life stories, he had to figure out what he was working with here. “Howard?”

“Alive and running Stark International — I’ve been helping out since Justin Hammer nearly ran the company into the ground.”

He decided against asking how Justin Hammer got control of the company. At this rate, Hammer was probably also nineteen years old and into creating zombie armies to take over the world. “Rhodey?”

“Air Force Academy — we’ve been friends since we were kids —”

Great. He had a Rhodey. “Pepper? Happy?”

“Pepper — ex-girlfriend, and she’s at Empire State, trying to get into SHIELD. Happy’s also at Empire State — I think he’s on the football team. Are these your friends too?”

Okay, that’s a different Pepper. “Rhodey is with the Air Force and Pepper and Happy work for me. Okay — I’ve got a few more people —”

“What are you trying to do?”

“You are me and I am you, but that doesn’t mean that our friends and teammates are the same people. So, how about the Avengers?”

“Avengers? Never heard of them.”

“Right.” Tony took a deep breath. “That’s my superhero team — the Avengers.”

“Oh, Fury tried to talk me into joining a superhero team. Wasn’t interested at the time.”

“You don’t think Iron Man could use the help?”

“I’m, um, not Iron Man right now.”

“What?” Tony couldn’t imagine a universe where he choose not to be Iron Man. Sure, there were universes where he didn’t end up as Iron Man, but to have built the armor and not use it? He couldn’t imagine it. He checked Reed’s doohickey and his suit again to confirm the universe. “I came here because you haven’t met Captain America yet.”

Young Tony frowned. “But I have — I saw him frozen in a tank on a SHIELD helicarrier.”

“YOU LEFT STEVE IN A TANK AND DIDN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?”

“You weren’t there — you wouldn’t understand.” Young Tony rubbed his face. “Look, SHIELD has no idea how to wake him up. I’m not into the biomedical side of things, but I think that they probably have their reasons. And why is Captain America Steve to you?”

“Steve Rogers is awesome in nearly every universe and you don’t care?”

“SHIELD has it covered. Besides, I’m retired from the superhero thing, and I’ve got an econ paper to write.”

“Oh, please, you can write that paper a half-hour before class and still get an A. You’re me, I know these things.”

Young Tony sighed and looked longingly at his pizza. “I’m working hard to get Stark International back on track and my dad needs me. That’s a firm no.”

Tony gritted his teeth. This was going to be harder than he thought.


	20. Steve

Steve lay back on his cot in his prison cell, plotting his latest attempt to escape. He had figured out early on that Kang had left the shield behind because the shield proved useless in chipping and breaking the invisible walls, floor and ceiling. He had tried to pry open the door when he was given food, rip the toilet and sink off the walls, and punch a hole in the ceiling with a table leg. He’d gotten electrocuted for that attempt.

The slot opened with his breakfast/lunch/dinner meal — a shake and a couple of crackers. No utensils for Steve. He’d lost that privilege when he broke the slot flap. Kang mumbled something about no more food if Steve tried that trick again.

He knew he had been served lunch when Kang appeared outside his cell. Kang had developed a habit of coming by in the afternoon. The only reason Steve knew it was afternoon was that Kang always started his monologues with “good afternoon.” 

Kang floated serenely on his chrono-throne and watched Steve through the invisible wall.

“Good afternoon, Captain Rogers,” he started politely.

“Good afternoon,” Steve replied as politely. 

“I am close to capturing your compatriot, Tony Stark. That is all for today. I am hoping that you will spend the rest of your day contemplating your failure to stop me.”

Steve instead spent the afternoon trying to escape. And thinking of Tony. He only stopped when they gave him dinner. Which had to be drugged, as Steve collapsed on the cot. He woke up on a pallet set on the floor and a beanbag chair in place of the wooden cot and chair he had earlier. More punishment, he guessed.

“Please stop trying to escape, Captain Rogers. It’s very trying,” Kang said on his next visit. “You cannot escape, and even if you did, I’d find you and return you here.”

Here. Without Tony. Forever.

Like hell Steve wasn’t going to try and escape. 

In the morning he got up and went through his calisthenics routine. It helped to take the edge off and keep him grounded. But today all he could think about was Tony and seeing Tony again and getting them both home. He’d missed his guy for far too long. And after seeing all the other Tonys and Steves happy or what passed for happy for them, he wasn’t inclined to ever let his Tony go again. 

If Tony were here, he’d joke with Steve about spending his day working out. He’d talk to Steve about all sorts of things that weren’t work or Avengers or SHIELD. Weirdly, that cell was exactly what his life would be like without Tony — he’d be building his own personal prison with work, guilt and pain if it wasn’t for Tony bringing him sunshine, hope and a home. The only answer for all of that was to marry Tony and make a statement to the world that they were meant for each other and were going to build a life together.

He wanted to wake up next to Tony every morning for the rest of his life and know that he and Tony would bring out the best in each other, to know that he was more important than even coffee in Tony’s life. He wanted to hear people call Tony his husband. He wanted to fight supervillains that dared to interrupt date night and anniversaries, and shout that they were ruining his evening with his husband. He wanted to be distracted by the glint of gold on his left hand as he punched an invading alien. He wanted the arguments, the fights and the worry when Tony got injured. That was all them, everything that mattered and bound them together. 

He loved Tony with everything he had, and he had to tell Tony that. With flowers and moonlight and a little black box. Wait -- make that a blue box — Tony was picky about jewelry and preferred Tiffany’s.

Kang came by again. He was holding the cosmic cube on his lap. “I wanted to show you the instrument of your ultimate destruction, Captain Rogers.” He lifted the cosmic cube. “I’ve manipulated reality and time with this ancient object and now will strike the final blow. I will banish Tony Stark from all the multiverse.”

Horrified, Steve watched, mesmerized, as the cube pulsed with a glowing interior light. It seemed to be alive, a tiny beating heart in Kang’s hands. And it was going to destroy his life. 

He looked up at Kang already gloating. It wasn’t going to end here for them, it couldn’t.

The cube rose up, freeing itself from Kang’s grip. It pulsed light and then dark. Kang scrambled to grab it back. But the cube disappeared in an explosion of sparkling rainbow light. They both stood stunned at the sudden development. 

Steve smiled grimly at Kang. “Looks like the cube didn’t agree with your plans.”

Kang glared at Steve, then composed himself. “It does not matter — I have no need for trinkets to manage my affairs. I know where Stark is and can fetch him here. Do not think for one minute that you have a chance of defeating me, Captain Rogers. I always win in the end.”


	21. Tony

“Thanks for the pizza,” Tony said as politely as he could muster as Young Tony handed him a slice. “Why did you give up on Iron Man?”

“Retired,” Young Tony corrected. He sat down on the couch with the pizza box.

“Fine, retired. What gives?”

Young Tony crossed his arms and frowned. “I saved the world from an alien invasion with all my friends after I graduated from high school. I’d been fighting crime and trying to get Stark International back for years. I had my own company — Stark Solutions — and that was going gangbusters. Then my dad needed my help with both companies and I’m in college now. I just had other priorities. I lost my girlfriend because I got too busy. Iron Man can wait.”

Boy, Young Tony had packed a lot of living into the last few years. Tony ate his slice of pizza and thought hard about his next step. “Who were your friends when you fought the alien invasion?”

“Well — there was Rhodey — he’s War Machine — and Pepper — Rescue. There was Black Widow and Hawkeye. Black Panther …”

“So you quit — sorry, retired from Iron Man when you moved away from your friends?”

Young Tony nodded. “Yeah.”

“Don’t you miss flying?”

“Yeah,” the other Tony admitted as he ducked his head. “I miss flying and fighting supervillains —”

“And being part of a team?”

“Honestly, I could take or leave being on a superhero team.” He reached for another slice of pizza. “Rhodey can’t be part of a team long-term — he’s going into the Air Force. Pepper wants to be a SHIELD agent more than being Rescue. I can’t imagine that working with anyone else would be better.”

“My team — the Avengers — they’re my friends. We’ve fought at least dozen alien invasions, Red Skull and his cabal, and tons of supervillains.”

“Who do you have on your team?”

“Black Widow and Hawkeye to start with. Thor and Hulk.”

“Bruce? He’s one of my dad’s friends.”

“Oh.” Tony couldn’t quite imagine his Bruce being friends with his dad. But he was discovering that this universe’s Howard was vastly different from his Howard. “There’s Falcon. We team up with Black Panther and Captain Marvel and other heroes. But my best friend on the team is Steve. We wouldn’t be the Avengers without him.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Steve Rogers — Captain America. Guess you’re one of those universes where his identity is classified. The thing is — I’ve traveled through a lot of universes at this point, and every universe is better with a Iron Man and a Captain America.”

“That’s great. But that’s them, not me. I’m not really a team player.”

Tony got up and paced back and forth. “I’ve met Tonys that got out of the Iron Man business, but we all miss being Iron Man. Nearly all of us go back to it — the armor, the suits, the fights, the Avengers. We can’t stay away. We make a difference in the world, make up for all the bad that we’ve done selling weapons without caring what that did to the world.” He tapped the arc reactor. “I got this because of shrapnel from a Stark weapon. It’s a reminder of all the terrible stuff I’ve done.”

“My dad had mostly gotten us out of the weapons business before — well, before Stane took over.”

“Obadiah Stane, yeah, he’s a piece of work. Was he Iron Monger here, too?”

Young Tony shuddered. 

“I’m taking that as a yes. The thing is — the world still needs an Iron Man. One alien invasion, pffft. There’ll be more. Can you honestly sit on the sidelines and watch the invasion on TV?”

The other Tony took a deep breath and contemplated Tony’s helmet on the coffee table. “I think about the armor sometimes.” 

Tony arched his eyebrow and gave him a Look. 

Young Tony snorted. “Fine, all the time. I drew schematics in econ class today.”

“I bet you ‘retired’ because it was too hard without a team. And you don’t like the idea of working with SHIELD. But Captain America — he’s the glue that keeps a team together. He’s a rock when you need it — he’ll push you to your limits and drive you crazy, but you’ll want to do it for him. He’s the guy that holds the line against the supervillains so you can do the crazy world-saving shit you were born to do. And what’s better than doing all that with your friends?”

Tony caught the gleam in Young Tony’s eyes. He had him hooked. 

“Fury told me that SHIELD found Captain America in an ice floe off Greenland.”

“Yeah, Captain America is usually found in the ice, sometimes by SHIELD, sometimes by a Tony Stark. It goes better for a Steve if a Stark finds him.”

“Why?”

Tony threw an arm around Young Tony’s shoulders. “Because Steve needs you as much you need him. A Steve without a Tony — well, that’s not a good thing. Left to his own devices, Steve works himself into the ground, and he’s got an unbelievable guilt complex. He needs someone to balance him out, and you’re the guy to do it.”

“Right. Like a legend like Captain America needs me.”

Tony bit his tongue. Young Tony had to find out for himself. “Okay, imagine someone just like you — same age, same hopes and fears, wants to do good and fight injustice. He wakes from a coma years in his future, lost and alone, and all he finds is SHIELD on the other end. Do you want that to happen to him? To anyone?”

Young Tony bit his lip and darted his eyes around the room, trying to avoid looking directly at Tony and the armor.

“Are you in or are you out?”

“Fury said that he hoped that I would help them revive Cap someday.” Young Tony nodded thoughtfully, then cocked his head to the side. “They said that the guy is alive and in suspended animation. But I don’t know why they haven’t attempted to wake him up.”

“I don’t know your Fury.”

“We’ll have to break into SHIELD to get him.”

“We need more coffee —”

“The coffee bot’s in the kitchen,” Young Tony said as he headed to a back room. “Hey — how did they defrost Captain America in your universe?”

“The ice melted and he woke up.”

“Seriously, that’s all it took? Fury and Hill implied that the process was more complicated —”

“See what I meant about SHIELD?”

“Yeah?”

“SHIELD goes for the answers that involve multi-layers of bureaucracy. Fury probably has fifteen different plans on how to revive Captain America and doesn’t know which one to pick because his people are all ‘don’t blame me if I end up killing Captain America because we picked the wrong plan.’ He’ll do it eventually — someone will be willing to take the risk. Imagine what they would do to Cap — more war and fighting for him when he needs more fresh air and pizza and movies and video games and —”

“I get the point,” Young Tony said. “My dad is going to kill me.”

“Eh, blame me. He can believe that I exist or not. Up to him. Later, after we wake up Cap.”

An hour later, Young Tony was feeding him coffee and grilling him about the armor and other Iron Man-type problems while they hacked into SHIELD from laptops in the living room. Tony was grateful that lots of helicarrier designs were similar across the multiverse. It was going to make breaking into a helicarrier much easier. Plus, Young Tony was bragging about all the innovations he’d made to the most recent helicarrier replacement. It should be easy-peasy — locate the helicarrier, determine where Steve was, break in, grab Steve, wake him up somewhere safe, order restored to the universe. But they couldn’t find Steve anywhere.

“Fury must have moved him after the Makluan Invasion. The helicarrier took a direct hit. He probably didn’t want to risk it again.”

“Huh, let’s pull up the bases — look for the hard-to-find ones. Is there a Triskelion here?”

Young Tony shrugged. “Never heard of it.”

“Scratch that. It’s the main SHIELD base in some universes. Do you have any idea if there’s a main SHIELD base? Fury might look like a pirate, but he doesn’t live like one. He’s got to hang up the eyepatch somewhere.”

“Hey — wait, there’s a headquarters in New York.” Young Tony pointed at his computer. “Let’s start there.” 

A short time later they had located a possible lead — a classified project on the thirtieth floor of the SHIELD headquarters. A couple of minutes later they discovered the classified project had the handle “Project Rebirth.” 

“That’s Cap,” Tony crowed. 

Young Tony scrolled through the medical and security data attached to the project. “Looks good. The project had been relocated from a helicarrier —”

Tony thumped him on the back. “Suit up and we’re on our way.”

~~~~~

Tony thought that one of the best things about meeting multiverse Tonys was talking about the armor. No one, except for the occasional Rhodey, understood the problems like another Tony. Young Tony had some great ideas about AI, but struggled with some of the weaponry and tactical approaches. He’d used the suit mostly to track down and fight corporate criminals and street thieves and Mafia goons. Tony had far more experience fighting squads of fighters at a time. 

He was explaining how the Avengers fought Thanos the first time when they arrived at SHIELD headquarters. “Got the plan, Tony?”

“Yes, Tony,” Young Tony replied with a laugh.

Young Tony stowed his suit in a backpack and headed off to start phase one of the infiltration. Once he snuck onto the right floor, he’d call for Tony, who was busy wreaking havoc on SHIELD communications. Young Tony waved off Tony’s concerns. “Piece of cake. I used to do this all the time. Hard to resist the Stark charm.”

Tony cooled his heels waiting for the signal. This had to work. Save this Steve, get home, go on vacation with his Steve. Oooh, he could rent an island for the both of them. Steve would like that. He should line that up right now. Could he book a vacation in his universe from this universe? A crackle over the comms broke into his thoughts.

“You never told me he’s the most gorgeous guy in the world,” Young Tony accused him over the comms.

“What happened?” Hmmm, maybe he should have led with that instead of the save-the-universe-put-the-Avengers-together approach.

“Nothing,” Young Tony protested. “I’m here with Cap in the Ice. And he’s —”

“Do. Not. Do. Anything. I’m on my way.”

He should have known Young Tony was a true Anthony Edward Stark at the core, despite the heartwarming relationship with his father, relatively stable home life and peaceful retirement from Iron Man. There was no way on earth — on any earth — that would stop Tony from opening the containment cell once his curiosity was aroused. 

Tony opened the door just in time to see Young Tony step towards the cell where his Captain America was floating frozen in cold seawater. He ran to the control center to find that Young Tony had already disabled all the SHIELD controls and monitoring. All he had to do was watch for swarming SHIELD agents. And figure out how to stop gallons and gallons of water from spilling out once the cell was open. 

Thank the gods — or whatever looked after foolish Iron Men — that Young Tony had looped him into his old suit AI. “Drains?” he queried.

“I detect a complex series of drains and water filtration systems,” the AI reported. Young Tony was frantically tapping at the cell controls. “SHIELD agents are heading this way. The drain controls on the far right side of the console.”

“Make it look like a power outage — sic the building facilities guys on them.” he tapped on the console and pulled up the control panel with the drains. “Tony, wait. Let me drain the cell before we drown.” He hit the button and heard the whoosh and gurgle as the water drained.

Young Tony impatiently tapped his foot. “How much longer?”

“Your AI bought us time — she reprogrammed the alarms to make it look like there’s a massive power failure in the building, and yours truly wrecked the internal communications. I’m raising the temperature of the room now to help with the melting.”

The cell door sprang open as soon as the water drained out. Young Tony tried to wrestle the ice cube that was Cap out of the cell. 

“Wait for me,” Tony said exasperatedly.

The only thing that was keeping SHIELD at bay was the massive confusion about what was going on, plus the war between agents and the facilities guys over the headquarters’ electrical systems. Tony held his breath as the ice surrounding Captain America melted away. Tony sat at Cap’s side, a wondrous look already on his face.

Was he like this in every universe?

“SHIELD agents are outside the door, ready to break it down.”

“Come on, Kid Galahad — grab Sleeping Beauty and let’s blow this place.”

“No, wait, he’s waking up.”

Captain America began to stir and shift, breaking the ice still covering his body. He sat up in a pool of ice and water, blinking and rubbing his face. “Where am I? What’s —” Steve looked impossibly young, like he was the same age as Young Tony. Damn, Tony felt ancient just looking at them.

“Hi, I’m Tony Stark, and I’ve come to wake you up.”

“Wake me up?” Cap shook his head. “I’m Steve Rogers.” He held out a hand for Tony to shake.

Tony heard the door open behind him, but it was only Fury. The door slid shut in front of the crowd of SHIELD agents. Tony stepped over to block him from getting closer.

“So, he finally did it. Woke up Captain America.”

“Yeah, guess he did. You were planning on it?” Tony asked. He decided on keeping the face plate down. There’d be too many questions otherwise, considering his eye color and the goatee and his age. 

But Fury was Fury. He furrowed his brow. “Are you Tony from the future?”

“I’m just another Iron Man helping out.” Tony glanced back at Tony, infatuated already with Steve and talking away. “He’s a good kid.”

Fury smiled. “One of the best. I’ll call off the party and leave them until they’re ready. How about you join me?”

“Okay,” Tony replied warily. “But I’m from the, um, future, and could disappear at any moment, now that my job is, uh, done.” 

He didn't know what he was thinking would happen once they freed Steve from the tank. To be honest, Tony was expecting a portal to whisk him away to his Steve. 

What if this was his life now? Matchmaker to Steves and Tonys across the multiverse, setting things right where they went wrong and only allowed to return home when his task was done. 

Sigh. He hadn’t signed up for that. But he’d do it for Steve.

Rolling his eyes, Fury turned to leave. Nice to see that Fury trusted this Tony. Then Tony heard the familiar crackle, pop and hiss of a opening portal. He whirled around, looking for the portal.

Kang grabbed his shoulder, violently dragging him backwards into the unseen portal. “You’ve ruined everything, Stark,” he hissed. “I’m going to make you pay and suffer beyond all suffering.”


	22. Tony and Steve

Kang dumped Tony in a clear glass prison cell next to Steve. Who was either asleep (best option) or unconscious (worse option) on a pallet in a similar cell.

“You think you’ve won,” Kang snapped. “You think you’re clever and you’ve undone my plans. History tells me that you don’t win. That whatever you’ve accomplished is nothing more than a fleeting illusion. You’ll stay here until I figure out what to do with you.” 

He ripped Reed’s tool out of Tony’s hand and slammed the invisible door behind him.

Tony took a survey of what he had on hand — a cot with a wood frame and a beanbag chair were the only pieces of furniture. He tapped along the walls and found when he waved a hand in a certain direction, a sink or a toilet would slide out from the wall then slide back immediately if Tony’s hand moved away. Clever. It cut down on Tony’s ability to escape. He suspected that food would appear in a similar fashion and might come in pill form.

He tapped on the glass. “Steve?” he called out. But Steve didn’t stir — either he was really unconscious or couldn’t hear him through the walls.

Oh, that was the worst. To be so close to Steve, but not be able to touch or talk. Maybe stuck here for all eternity or until Kang decided to end it.

He took off the armor piece by piece, testing to see if the cell would absorb the armor. He guessed rightly that if he put the armor on the cot, the armor would be fine. He could guess that Kang left the cot out because the cot was made of nothing that could be exploited for an escape. Huh.

Steve stretched and yawned and woke up. He ran over to the cell wall when he saw Tony. Tony could not hear him call out his name, but he knew that Steve was saying his name. His face lit up all over and he put a hand on the wall. 

“Steve, baby, I’m here,” Tony replied and put his own hand on the wall opposite Steve’s wall. The cells were separated by three inches of space. 

Tony’s heart ached. It felt exactly like when they were first separated when Tony was exiled to a pocket dimension. It looked like a few inches of separation, but was in reality oceans and universes apart. He wished he could hear Steve’s voice. 

That was Kang’s plan. To keep them in these cells until they died, living next to each other each day, but separated forever. It would be better for Kang to kill them. 

He looked again and Steve, wearing a bright broad smile, was moving his fingers carefully. Right — sign language. He was a bit rusty, but he could follow. That was until Steve’s cell filled with purple smoke. He watched Steve cough, choke and then pass out. Once Steve was a crumpled heap on the floor, the cloud of smoke dissipated. 

Yep, Kang was going to make them suffer.

While Steve lay unconscious, Tony again tested the walls. No luck. He racked his brain trying to think of how to outsmart Kang. Steve would say that they were halfway there since Kang was good and angry. But how to exploit that, was the question. Assuming they would ever see Kang again.

But, wait, nothing was perfect. Years and years of engineering and reverse engineering had taught Tony that everything ever made or created had a flaw. For all his power, Kang was still powered by technology. He didn’t use magic or anything that unpredictable. Tony learned a lot already from what happened to Steve. There was space around the cells for the support (and punishment) systems. There were built-in limitations to how the cells functioned. What appeared to be invisible had to be an illusion or masked future tech.

He’d have to be careful. The cells were designed to harm him or Steve if they communicated directly with each other. Hurting Steve, no matter how much Steve indicated he could take it, would stop Tony in his tracks. They would have to be subtle. He could leave that to Steve — Steve was an immensely resourceful guy in situations like this.

Tony went back to mapping the room and created a mental grid overlay for the cell. The cot took up three squares of the grid, the beanbag chair one square. He waved his hand and figured out that the toilet and sink were on one wall, the table on the opposite wall from the wall adjacent to Steve’s cell. His operating theory was the door to the cell was the one opposite from the toilet and sink and that the food would be delivered on that wall. The toilet and sink had to be tied into the sewer systems of whatever building they were held in. There had to be sophisticated systems to deliver the punishments — those systems were likely built into the ceilings. 

Steve stumbled to his feet. Before he attempted to contact Tony again, Tony shook his head and made some vague motions about the cells. Steve immediately nodded and made a motion indicating that he was going to zip his lip. He repositioned his beanbag chair in a way that he wasn’t looking at Tony directly, yet could keep track of him out of the corner of his eye.

Tony went through his mapping again. He set down the armor pieces, figuring that the pieces would not be absorbed by the floor since he hadn’t found anything that popped from there. Then he laid down on the cot like he was going to try to fall asleep. He watched Steve through the reflections on the armor pieces. Steve showed him his sink, toilet, table and food slot. All good information. Now Tony knew that the cells were mirrors of each other. He yawned. Maybe it was a good idea to get some sleep in before tackling an escape plan.

~~~~~

Steve watched Tony sleep, wondering how comfortable Tony could really be on the rough cot. He thought back to the first time he had slept in Tony’s wonderfully comfortable, huge bed in his suite. He smiled at the memory, because honestly how comfortable the bed was was not his first or second or third thought that night, but he sure appreciated it in the morning. 

As much as he would have preferred to spare Tony from that prison, he felt a bit selfish at being happy that Tony was now there. They had a better chance at escape together. 

Kang had designed their cells well, counting heavily that punishing one for the actions of the other would kept them in check. But Kang had one thing in common with Tony — a blind spot when it came to technology. 

They could exploit that. 

Tony was working on his plan, so Steve worked on his. Now he’d figured out from Tony’s actions what Tony was working on — the layout of their cells. The floor or the door were the key for getting out. The best option would be for Tony to escape first. Kang hadn’t taken Tony’s armor, probably thinking the armor was of little use again his advanced tech or that it was too damaged to be used; the same reasons he had not taken the shield. 

Armor — that was their way home. They had to keep safe whatever part Tony had altered for the portal tool. And Steve would prefer to bring the shield home. Everything else could go. The problem was that Steve was patient, and Tony wasn’t. They didn’t need tech to escape, but Tony could go stir crazy in isolation. 

Steve started his own explorations of the floor. They were likely being monitored so Steve worked as stealthily as he could. His usual routine of calisthenics would be the best cover — he could learn a lot from being up and close and personal with the floor as he did push-ups. As he worked out, he looked for cracks or seams in the floor.

The floor, of course, was perfectly white and smooth, but Steve had calculated that the smoothness could be an illusion like the wall, meant to hide what couldn’t be hidden. The floor, though, wasn’t the first object of his interest. The door was always the weakest point of a cell — there had to be cracks or hinges to exploit. A window would even be better.

Unless there was a better option. Steve began a series of jumping jacks and used the opportunity to examine the ceiling. That gas had filled the cell far too fast for a single output nozzle. There had to be many hidden in the ceiling. Where were the holes?

Tony was now awake and trying hard to restrain his curiosity at what Steve was doing. Unless Tony was checking him out. Steve had missed those appreciative glances a lot. Tony could be doing both — he was a great multi-tasker. Steve did his cool down stretches, which masked him sending morse code to Tony.

He saw Tony nudge an armor piece into the right direction. He kept up the morse code. Tony was either watching in the reflection or using the armor to record his actions. Then Steve signed a question to Tony, something about missing him. The gas filled the room. This time Steve noted exactly where on the ceiling the nozzles were that pumped out the gas.

When he woke up, Tony had fashioned a odd-looking tool from the armor and set it down on the floor. Steve didn’t even look in Tony’s direction. They would be risking too much with a single glance at this point. 

A rattle grabbed his attention. The food slot opened and a flimsy plastic tray with pills and a bottle of water slid through. He had already learned that the tray was useless for anything. Steve dropped it into a slot that looked like a trash chute. He went back to the cot to pretend to sleep. The light in the ceiling would dim soon so that they could sleep. The light would not be turned off completely, but it would be enough for Steve to be able to see while he fashioned a tool like Tony’s from his uniform.

After breakfast, Tony mimicked his calisthenics routine. He lacked form and enthusiasm and stealth while he mapped out the nozzles in his ceiling. Steve closed his eyes and crossed his fingers, hoping that Tony wouldn’t set off the gas. He could take the repeated gassings. But Tony, already compromised by the arc reactor, didn’t have that luxury or the lung capacity.

He cracked an eye at the same moment that Tony poked at the ceiling with his strange little tool. Then he peeled back part of the ceiling. Steve had to look away before he was caught staring. He snuck a look. Tony had gotten bolder with the peeling. Then he pushed back the peeled part, tucked the tool away and sat in the beanbag chair with his arms crossed.

Tony had a plan. 

Steve laid back in his cot, taking deep breaths to relax and keep calm. His eyes darted around the ceiling looking for the monitors tracking their movements. He glanced over at Tony, who had put a gauntlet and a boot on. 

Go time. Tony would make his escape and then come back for him with the team. 

Tony reached up and tugged the torn ceiling part down. Steve looked at Tony’s room, and noticed that Tony had rigged up a hologram to distract the monitoring system. Steve doubted that distraction would last long. But Tony was working quickly and had now had opened up the ceiling enough to crawl up into it and disappear.

Steve sighed with relief. 

The nozzles in his cell hissed alive. The gas was different this time. He gasped and choked. Not knockout gas. Poison gas. That’s why they could escape through the ceiling — breaking through any of the walls, floor or ceiling would trigger the poison gas in the other cell. 

He could hold his breath a long time, but not forever. Kang had probably counted on that — that Steve wouldn’t risk Tony’s life and Tony would stop whatever he was doing to save Steve.

Steve didn’t want Tony to stop. If anyone was to escape this, he wanted it to be Tony, who had so much to offer the world. Steve was a soldier — he signed up for war and knew the risks.

The room was filling with the gas. He held his breath. Tony was nowhere to be seen. He always thought he’d die a different way than being a prisoner of a supervillain. But then again, he hadn’t ever thought he end up in an iceberg and wake up seventy years later either. He had to admit that life was a constant source of surprises.

He could feel his body starting to need oxygen, now a rapidly dwindling resource in his cell. 

He wished he’d been able to tell Tony he loved him one more time. 

“No. No. Please be alive, Steve,” Tony shouted as he crashed through the ceiling. 

Steve blinked and involuntarily took a breath. The air rushing into his lungs stung, but the poison gas was dissipating quickly. “What?” he croaked out.

“I broke the gas lines in the ceiling. Come on — we’ve got to get out of here. And now.”

Tony pulled and pushed at Steve, who felt weakness in his joints and could barely hold onto the shield. Tony waved his gauntlet a couple of times. In a minute, Steve had recovered enough to pull himself through the ceiling and into the crawl space above the cells. He had a thicker frame than Tony and he could barely move. Tony crowded in behind him.

They could hear Kang below bellowing at guards. “How could you lose them? Didn’t I tell you that they were the most dangerous men in the universe?”

“Hah. At least we won that award this year, never know what our chances are in the future — the Kang Memorial Most Dangerous in the Universe Trophy,” Tony snorted. “Wonder if I could put that in the next corporate news release.”

“We’re not free yet,” Steve said worriedly.

“We’re on our way home, Steve.”

“We’re in universe Earth-12041.”

“Even better!” Tony waved his gauntlet again to open a portal just in front of Steve. “Wriggle your way to freedom and home, Cap.”

Steve wriggled until the light in the portal pulled him through. Tony and he rolled out of the other side of the portal into the middle of the Avengers hanger. They both sat on the ground laughing and tangled up in each other. Steve pressed a kiss into Tony’s hair.

“Marry me,” he said.

Tony squeezed his waist. “I was hoping for a more romantic proposal. But why the hell not? Let’s get married.”

The rest of the team rushed up to them. “Steve! Tony!” they shouted. “What happened?” Natasha asked.

Steve and Tony smiled at each other. 

“I’m back, that’s what happened.” Tony stood up. “We’re back home.”

~~~~~

“I don’t think we caused all that much trouble, maybe beat up a lot of supervillains, started a small revolution …”

Steve nodded as he looked over the stunningly beautiful pool surrounded by cabanas, dark wicker furniture and green potted shrubs under a deep blue, cloudless sky. Lounging by the pool wasn’t his usual style, but he had made a deal with Tony after they returned home. He got the courthouse wedding he wanted, and Tony got to stay wherever he wanted in Las Vegas. They had four days of this.

He set his book down and settled back in his chaise lounge. And thought about dinner. Tony had banned him from the buffets — it hadn’t been pretty when Steve visited that first day of the visit.

“Uh, Steve?”

“Yes?” He was playing with his wedding ring. He hoped he’d never get used to that feeling.

“I’ve been thinking about all those Tonys and Steves we met and the ones we never met.”

“And?” He turned onto his side to look at Tony.

“Are you happy here? Out of the ice, working with the Avengers.”

“Aren’t these kind of heavy thoughts on our honeymoon?”

“I want you to be happy, Steve.”

Steve took Tony’s hand and held it, looking at the matching rings on both hands. He pressed a kiss to the warm metal. “You gave me a home and your heart and we have the world ahead of us. Why wouldn’t I be the happiest man in the world?”

“Good. Because I started wondering about that when you were annoyed when I said no more buffets.”

“If that’s all we ever fight about, we’re lucky.”

“That’s because I haven’t told you my plans for redoing the bedroom.”

Steve rolled onto his back and laughed. And couldn’t stop laughing. Marriage wasn’t going to change Tony Stark one bit. “I think we’ll survive bad paint choices, Tony. We’ve faced a lot worse together.”

Tony tugged Steve’s hand. “Okay, I was thinking we could move …”

Steve kissed him breathlessly until Tony forgot what he was going to say. “Love you, too, Tony.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Art for "Long Journey Home"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832587) by [ExitTheKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExitTheKing/pseuds/ExitTheKing)




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